tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41795950075549806452018-07-03T00:36:53.139-07:00The Abode of Yoga"All life is Yoga." Sri AurobindoY.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-34248337563381378262016-06-17T13:30:00.000-07:002016-06-17T13:32:51.970-07:00Lavanya - A Guest Post<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QbKKUc1HPb0/V2C16K0ZvbI/AAAAAAAAA78/mQTjWK4TkewahMbbQqU9JdFXgNRzUN0XACKgB/s1600/lavanya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QbKKUc1HPb0/V2C16K0ZvbI/AAAAAAAAA78/mQTjWK4TkewahMbbQqU9JdFXgNRzUN0XACKgB/s320/lavanya.jpg" width="216" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px;"><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I WAS NOT AS SPECIAL AS YOU AND I THOUGHT</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This is the story of a few pivotal experiences of my 31 years in the Sri Chinmoy Centre. Telling it makes me feel sad, mad, ashamed, and foolish for staying and serving for so many years after I knew things were not as they should be, starting with our divine leader. Still, when I finally left the Centre, I swore to myself that I would never tell what I knew about him, and until recently I thought I never would. But when I left the Centre, I thought I knew what was true about Chinmoy, when actually I knew almost nothing. Now, as the real Chinmoy is gradually being revealed by piecing together all of our experiences with him, it seems I can’t keep my own story tamped down any longer. It needs to be told.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s not a good story, not a happy story, and I am not a heroine – on the contrary. But life is telling me it’s time to speak up. I probably should have spoken long ago. I definitely COULD have spoken about 40 years ago. Maybe I would have spared a lot of people a lot of pain. But probably not. Even now, people don’t listen to what they don’t want to hear, myself included. From what we hear and read, it seems all the gurus are bad gurus, pretty much. You pick one, and you get what you get, because you are who you are. Things have to run their course. The things you need to learn, sometimes you need to learn them the hard way.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They say a liar thinks everyone is lying. Maybe an honest person thinks everyone else is honest. I was honest, and that was how I approached life and the world: I believed other people were pretty much like me, basically honest. But there were other traits that also made me who I was. I was not curious about other people’s lives. I was not nosey. I was not suspicious. I was not a philosopher or a deep thinker by nature. I didn’t get any satisfaction from speculating about things that I didn’t know and couldn’t know. I didn’t question authority. I didn’t think for myself. I didn’t even listen to myself. I was quiet and obedient. I was seen and not heard. I was book smart, but utterly foolish. I took Chinmoy’s word as law, and I literally tried to do exactly what he said we should, and do it cheerfully. I was innocent.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Worse – I was ignorant. Not consciously deliberately ignorant, but I saw things I wasn’t meant to see, and I somehow let them pass. Such as: Chinmoy embracing “S” on the second floor of his house. I was stunned! Then I was jealous. He used to tell me I was his favorite child, but he didn’t embrace ME!! Did he see my shocked face over her shoulder before I retreated, or was she the one who saw me come up the stairs? I don’t remember for sure, but I think it was him.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But why did I retreat? Why was I not bold enough to walk right up to them and put them on the spot? I don’t know. I was not a courageous person. I didn’t know how to speak up or speak out. If I had opinions, I didn’t have any confidence in them. I didn’t know how to stand up for myself or for what I thought. I wasn’t sure of myself. Still, why did seeing this not put me on my guard? Maybe I just wanted so much to believe in him. This was my guru, my lord, my God! Surely he could not be doing something wrong?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So I completely bought his explanation for the embrace: he said he was consoling her for problems with her husband. And then, not that much later, when she left the path, apparently in great anger, I didn’t think, I didn’t wonder, I didn’t ask questions. Once again, I accepted his explanation: she was jealous of me and “R.” Perhaps I was subtly flattered, and therefore didn’t consider: “Is it likely that someone would leave their guru because they were jealous of others?” Nobody does that. You stay and fight! You prove that YOU are worthy of his love.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And after S left, in spite of what I had seen, which he KNEW I had seen, Chinmoy was still able to use her as a weapon against me. I was that weak! I had switched to part-time after my first two years in college, but it wasn’t the kind of school where you could just slide by. So my time was not 100% at the service of the master, and as a result, I was left out of many activities, especially short trips. I was insecure, jealous, depressed, and whenever I admitted having these emotions, or manifested them too overtly, he would scold me and threaten me, saying that the forces that had taken S away were entering into me and would take me, too, if I didn’t conquer them.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So I tried really hard, and very sincerely, to conquer them. No insecurity, no impurity, no jealousy, no depression, no competition, no attachment, no possessiveness! Just love, devotion, surrender, surrender, surrender, unconditional surrender! How was my surrender? Was it unconditional? Was he my father-god?&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">You can see where this is going… And yes, that’s where it went. I was initiated with the most special blessing of having sexual contact with the perfected being who I believed would take my soul to the Highest Absolute Supreme. All those who have wondered how I managed to avoid being abused, here is your answer: I didn’t manage to avoid it. I didn’t try to avoid it. I accepted it in the same way that I accepted everything he offered: as the truth, as a blessing, a lesson, an opportunity to make the fastest progress. In this case, a unique privilege, because I was so special; I was the only one, and I must never tell anyone else. Oh yes! This self-educated man from a third-world country was clever enough to know how to use both my strengths and my weaknesses to control me completely.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And somehow, somehow, I convinced myself for a few years that this was indeed a great and rare spiritual blessing. I know that most of the guys, especially, are completely misunderstanding this, so please put your imaginations on hold, and let me try to explain why so many smart women believed that sex with the master was not sex; it was a purification ritual, an opportunity to make spiritual progress, a way to overcome our resistance, a way to practice and prove our surrender to our master. Wasn’t it our goal to have no will but his will? To lose our sense of self, and be nothing other than his divine instruments?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Chinmoy didn’t behave like a “normal” male when he was with me. He didn’t show any kind of eagerness, and he didn’t appear to be aroused by me. Maybe he was just not that into me, but I also didn’t get a sexual vibe from him. Short-shorts and sleeveless undershirts notwithstanding, he always seemed quite unconscious of how his body might be perceived by women (even later, when he started weightlifting and showing it off deliberately). He struck me as basically asexual. His behavior when he was with me was kind of clinical and detached, like he was observing an experiment, not like he was personally participating in an intimate or pleasurable act.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Maybe that’s what it was at the beginning -- like the divine marriages -- an experiment of some kind. Or maybe that was just the way his particular sexuality manifested itself. There was never what I would call affection, appreciation, or satisfaction expressed. “All right, good girl, you can go,” or words to that effect signaled the end of each encounter once he stopped bothering to meditate with me afterwards. Chinmoy was affectionate in other (fatherly or avuncular) ways, but at other times.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">When it came to these “special blessing” encounters, he was all business, and quite detached – often with eyes almost closed, like he was meditating. I’m not saying he WAS meditating, but he looked like he was, and that’s all that mattered at the time. There were no caresses, no kisses, no foreplay; it was just business. “Make me strong,” he would say at the beginning of our encounters, and that wasn’t easy; it was yet another chore, like vacuuming the carpet or doing the laundry. So try to stop imagining something fun, please. It was not fun in any way. It was just another obligation on the list, and not a pleasant one. If he had appeared to be enjoying the process, I might have been suspicious.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But one fine afternoon, I went upstairs to perform one of my daily household chores – making up the master’s bed – only to find him in it with another. Both of them were sound asleep, along with all his countless inner beings, who for the second time had sadly failed to warn him of my imminent arrival. What they had been doing before sleep overtook them was obvious even to me. So I was NOT the only one, as he had repeatedly told me. That was a shocker; much worse than the embrace I had witnessed a few years earlier.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So what did I do? We all have our weaknesses. Cowardice is one of mine. I should have, but I COULD NOT, wake them up and make a huge scene. In my early 20s, I didn’t have the kind of self-confidence that would allow me to confront my guru and a prominent sister disciple. Not both of them together, and probably not separately either. I was too polite, too respectful, too afraid. It was simply impossible for me to ever deliberately put someone else in such an embarrassing position, even if they deserved it. I retreated back down the stairs and left the house quietly.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And I never told him, or her, or anyone else, what I had seen. It was burned into my memory, but somehow I never really made that memory part of my own story. I knew from that moment that my guru was a liar, and that his inner beings did not always protect him, as he often claimed they did. I never used what I saw against him. I never thought the obvious thought: “If he’s doing this with her and with me, isn’t it likely there are others?” I didn’t think worse of her or of him (except for the liar part). I barely ever thought of it at all, not even as the logical explanation when she began to dominate him (and me, of course). What level of cognitive dissonance was required in order for me to carry on as normal after seeing this?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We’ve been talking on FB about the phenomenon of not wanting to know the truth, and of knowing but not adjusting your life to reflect that knowledge. Call me the poster child for that strange psychology. Seeing his deception with my own eyes, experiencing his lack of omniscience in my own life, didn’t lead me to any logical next step, not even to wondering what else he might be lying about or getting up to. Was that because my sense of who I was depended so much on believing in who he was?&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">At one point many years later, I heard from Chinmoy himself that Sevika was “making allegations” against him, which he swore were not true. How could I have believed him? But I did, sort of. I was alerted about them by Chirantan, too, and by another friend, but I assured them both that these claims weren’t likely to be true. I guess I couldn’t admit that they probably WERE true, because I wasn’t ready to change my life. I wasn’t brave enough to face the truth. (“You can’t handle the truth!” That was me.)</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">All the same, my dissatisfaction with the path and its leader was already strong at that time, and growing stronger. For many years I could see that he was not perfect, that he was not all-seeing and all-knowing, and without a doubt he was not as divine as he claimed to be. Again and again I was disappointed, angered, and embarrassed by his general behavior and by his treatment of me and others. But still I remained a hard-working contributor to his mission, and possibly an unwitting enabler of his worst activities.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The last few years of my disciple life, when he pushed me away more and more, when I could see no future role for myself within the SCC, when he appeared to give in to all of R’s demands, I thought she must be blackmailing him in some way; there seemed to be no other logical explanation. I thought it, but despite all, not really. Who could dare to blackmail the guru and live to tell the tale? I never even imagined the seriousness of the threat she probably held over him. Why not? All I can say by way of explanation is: see paragraph 3.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So after all, I was just another one of the guru’s girls. Not the first fool; nothing special, just one of the crowd. Occasionally I wonder how I would have responded if I had known that there were many other women involved, or if he had tried to engage me in any of the group activities that came later. I’ll never know; I can only hope that my response would have been more appropriate. What I do know is that he had ways of beating down my resistance. How does a good disciple say no to the guru, to the god-man whose songs you sing, whose writings you read, whose poems you memorize, whose voice sounds like music, whose photo you meditate on, whose face looks at you from every wall and surface in your house?&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It took until somewhere in my late 30s for my fury and frustration to give me the courage to say, “I won’t; don’t ever ask me again!” to my Lord and Master. Although he shunned me brutally for weeks, and later tried several times to lure me back into his bedroom, somehow I held my ground. I was still responsible for cleaning the room, making the bed, picking his clothes up off the floor, and putting them away after they were washed and folded, but I would not pass the doorway if he was in the room. It’s little enough to be grateful for. And yet I stayed for another 10 to 15 frustrating, unhappy years, serving him in many other ways, out of habit, fear, love, hope, fear, friendship, sense of responsibility, fear, poverty, lack of confidence, and did I mention fear? Fear on so many levels – so subtle, so pervasive, so paralyzing, the fear of making a terrible spiritual mistake.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I couldn’t extricate myself from the life I had built around him and immersed myself in since I turned 18. I was bored, frustrated, overworked, unsatisfied, and depressed by my daily routines. And I was furious at Chinmoy for giving precedence to R when I was the one who actually worked hard for him, or so it seemed to me. I kept casting around for things that would give me some joy, and at the same time annoy the master. I cut my hair short. I wore earrings, nail polish, a black coat. I got a perm. He told me I should swim the Channel, so I jumped at the opportunity to join a gym with a pool “so I could practice.” I got in the pool exactly once; instead, I started weight-training, took aerobics and step classes, and discovered the pleasure of exercise-induced endorphins, which I never experienced from running. He didn’t like any of it, but he managed to tolerate it all.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And every time I thought things couldn’t get any worse with Chinmoy, they did get worse. So I got worse too. When my women-only gym closed for renovations, I started working out and taking classes at Gold’s. I got a personal trainer (a guy!), and loved being pushed hard and seeing muscles in my arms. I leased a commercial embroidery machine and went for a week-long course in how to use it. I went to a 3-day convention for aerobics teachers in Nashville (with Nidrahara). On one Christmas trip I got a tattoo. I was doing my best to get myself invited to leave, but my instinct for self-preservation was strong. I didn’t actually want to destroy myself; I just wanted out.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Finally, I signed up for ballroom dance lessons. Oh my god, they were SO much fun, and of course Chinmoy HATED them, which was my goal, after all. But even this he tolerated for a couple of years, as long as I was discreet. Eventually one girl saw me on TV, sitting in the audience at the Ohio Star Ball. (Why was she watching a ballroom dance competition on TV, bad girl?) But I developed a pinched nerve in one foot, and I went to Nishtha &amp; Pranika’s podiatrist to get orthotics for my dance shoes, naively trusting in the theory of doctor-patient confidentiality. Next time Nishtha went to him herself, I was busted, and this time I had pushed the master to his limit. (No doubt, Nishtha led a blameless life.) Chinmoy told me to give up the dance lessons or leave his path. I had to think about it; can you believe that? He offered me the thing I most desired and I actually did a Pros and Cons list! Fortunately, the dancing won. Or probably I should say that the path lost, because there was not much on the Pro side of that list; it was mostly Cons.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Ironically, I had to give up the dance lessons right away anyhow, because of course I couldn’t afford them, once I was no longer being handed wads of cash. (Cash that I was very much aware had been earned and lovingly offered – not to me – by my hardworking, and often impoverished, sisters and brothers.) But I didn’t mind. I was free. Every evening after work, my time was my own. Every weekend, I could do whatever I wanted. I never had to sit through another esraj concert or Peace Concert. I never had to learn another song. I never had to wait patiently for the divine Miss R to appear. I never had to stay awake beyond human endurance for no good reason. I never had to listen to another endless scolding, or be snubbed and ignored for unknown reasons, or told what to do or wear or think, who to talk to, where to go and what to do or not do.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I was free, more or less. Except for those pesky residual habits: dressing like a nun on holiday, being afraid of bad karma and hostile forces, feeling guilty about this and that. I was free, sort of, but I was also completely alone. All my friends and my customary support systems vanished at the moment of my departure. It was January 2000, and when my plumbing froze, I couldn’t call Achyuta to fix it. When my car broke down, I couldn’t call Vinaya. When I lost a filling, I had to find a dentist and pay him myself. I had no health insurance, no work history, no job, and no income.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Fortunately, I had a brother who was not a fan of Chinmoy, and he offered me a loan to get me through the first few months. My friend “P” got me a short-term job editing a book for the United Nations (the first book ever to have my name in the credits!), and then Gayatri and Gangadhar got permission from Chinmoy to hire me to work at their divine enterprise. It took me about a year to get on my feet and figure out how to live within my suddenly modest means, and I was grateful for the help I got from anyone who offered it.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Gayatri once told me that some of the boys in the Centre were convinced that Chinmoy still spoke to me every day, even after I left. Not so. The last words he ever spoke to me were the ultimatum about giving up the dance lessons. He sent me a drawing of a lot of birds on my 50</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> birthday, along with a kind message and 50 roses, but I was most definitely not invited to return, or even to attend any events. In fact, the one time I finally worked up the nerve to invite myself to the tennis court on August 27, I was hurriedly intercepted by Ashrita, who insisted that I wait outside until he could ask whether I might have permission to enter. “Otherwise,” said he, “it could cause problems.”&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Several years after leaving the Centre, when I finally manned up enough to read Sevika’s testimony, I knew immediately that it was true, because I had experienced it myself, exactly as she described it. Did I feel like a fool? Of course, but not much more than I already did when I thought it was just me (and the other woman I had seen in his bed) who had been deceived by a guru who was much less divine than he claimed to be. But I felt angry and disgusted with him, and horribly responsible for bringing Sevika into his orbit.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And despite all that, despite the fact that I dedicated so many years and gave up so many opportunities to spend my youth serving him, I’m still somehow grateful for what I received during those years – if not actually from him, at least through his auspices. I somehow can’t forget the image I had of him as divine and perfect, when he was young and still sweet-natured, beautiful, and inspiring. Even though it was just my illusion, carefully encouraged and nurtured by him, it was so convincing that it still lives on somewhere deep inside me.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Now, when I’m not feeling outraged at his hypocrisy and disgusted by his unspeakable treatment of so many women and young girls, I’m just deeply, deeply disappointed. We were trying our hardest to live up to his impossible demands, and he wasn’t even trying to be a decent human being. I still can’t wrap my mind around how he could behave so badly while at the same time continually berating us for falling short of his expectations. At least WE were trying!! I guess that’s how it is when you are dealing with a sociopath. Anyone on the “normal” spectrum can’t quite comprehend it.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Today it’s almost 17 years later. It sounds like a long time, but it feels like a moment. I am so grateful to be out of the Centre and mostly free of him, and to have gained some wisdom and perspective. A lot of that came from my sister and brothers at arms: you have been so loving and generous in sharing your time, your experiences, your pain, your resilience, your humor, your wit, and your own wisdom and perspective. Thank you all from the depth of my heart.</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div></div>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-47604002947028334862014-12-25T14:00:00.000-08:002014-12-25T14:08:51.082-08:00Introduction<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SadsAht1lcI/AAAAAAAAAww/vv-bzb-RIu8/s1600-h/Yogaloy.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SadsAht1lcI/AAAAAAAAAww/vv-bzb-RIu8/s400/Yogaloy.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307329442185844162" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 324px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />Thirty-four years ago, I became a disciple of the late Sri Chinmoy. My discipleship lasted nine years and they were some of the best years of my life and, without a doubt, the most significant.<br /><br />This memoir is about that journey and the enduring effects it had on me as a man. <br /><br />It's also about a number of troubling revelations of sexual misconduct by Sri Chinmoy, which have been made by an increasing number of his female disciples, and how those revelations have affected my understanding of my guru.<br /><br />It's not all doom and gloom, and I'd argue none of it is. I've met some truly unique and special individuals during the course of my spiritual development. I hope to introduce you to some of them.<br /><br />Most importantly, I want to give you a glimpse of my experience. I hope it will inspire other current and former disciples to write their own memoirs.<br /><br />Together, I'd like to think that someday our collective stories will make up a mosaic that will give future seekers a complete and diverse picture of what it was actually like to be a disciple of Sri Chinmoy.<br /><br />Below, you'll find a table of contents or you can always use the links on the left.<br /><br />Thank you for reading.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><br />Yogaloy<br /><br /><em>Please don't hesitate to write me with questions, comments, criticisms or corrections at yogaloy@yahoo.com. I'd love to hear from you all.</em>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-42458607004010749962014-12-25T13:30:00.000-08:002014-12-25T14:37:41.637-08:00Table of Contents<div align="center">BOOK ONE</div><br />I. <u>Mahasamadhi</u>.<br /><br />1. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-beginning.html">A New Beginning</a>.<br />2. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-york-goodbye.html">A New York Goodbye</a>.<br />3. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/gurus-death.html">Guru's Death</a>.<br /><br />II. <u>Growing Up</u>.<br /><br />4. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/blog-post.html">David Moretti</a>.<br />5. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/three-muskateers.html">Three Muskateers</a>.<br />6. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/book.html">The Book</a>.<br />7. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/camp-de-mar.html">Camp de Mar</a>.<br />8. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/shame-as-driving-force.html">Shame as a Driving Force</a>.<br />9. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/on-to-high-school.html">On to High School</a>.<br /><br />III. <u>Searching for More</u>.<br /><br />10. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/seed-begins-to-sprout.html">The Seed Begins to Sprout</a>.<br />11. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/prahlad.html">Prahlad</a>.<br />12. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/last-straw.html">The Last Straw</a>.<br />13. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/awakening.html">Awakening</a>.<br />14. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/novitiate.html">Novitiate</a>.<br />15. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/prakash.html">Prakash</a>.<br /><br />IV. <u>Early Days on the Path</u>.<br /><br />16. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/first-steps-on-path.html">First Steps on the Path</a>.<br />17. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/school-days.html">School Days</a>.<br />18. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-york-dream.html">A New York Dream</a>.<br />19. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/idolatry.html">Idolatry</a>.<br />20. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-york-at-last.html">New York at Last</a>.<br />21. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/goodbye.html">Goodbye</a>.<br />22. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/tightening-screws.html">Tightening the Screws</a>.<br />23. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/planning.html">Planning</a>.<br />24. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-leader.html">A New Leader</a>.<br />25. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/alo-devi.html">Alo Devi</a>.<br />26. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/making-grade.html">Making the Grade</a>.<br />27. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/april-83.html">April '83</a>.<br />28. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/outer-graduation.html">"Outer" Graduation</a>.<br /><br />V. <u>Coming Into My Own</u>.<br /><br />29. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/rick.html">Rick</a>.<br />30. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/names.html">Names</a>.<br />31. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/made-man.html">Made Man</a>.<br />32. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/gods-banner.html">God's Banner</a>.<br />33. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/back-home.html">Back Home</a>.<br />34. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/december-1983.html">December 1983</a>.<br />35. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/phanindra.html">Phanindra</a>.<br />36. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-year.html">A New Year</a>.<br />37. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/summer-games.html">The Summer Games</a>.<br />38. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/jigisha.html">Jigisha</a>.<br /><br />VI. <u>Closer to New York</u>.<br /><br />39. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/pulin.html">Pulin</a>.<br />40. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/gospel.html">The Gospel</a>.<br />41. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/anugata.html">Anugata</a>.<br />42. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/rick-gets-his-name.html">Rick Gets His Name</a>.<br />43. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-worst-quality.html">My Worst Quality</a>.<br />44. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-dont-get-my-name.html">I Don't Get My Name</a>.<br />45. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-get-my-name.html">I Get My Name</a>.<br />46. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-become-new-yorker.html">I Become a New Yorker</a>.<br /><br />VII. <u>Finally with the Master</u>.<br /><br />47. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/one-friday-night-that-november-1985-i.html">A Day in the Park</a>.<br />48. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/personal-mythology_10.html">Personal Mythology</a>.<br />49. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/200-pound-lift.html">The 200 Pound Lift</a>.<br />50. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/200-mile-race.html">The 200 Mile Race</a>.<br />51. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/slowing-down-for-context.html">Slowing Down for Context</a>.<br />52. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/at-gates-of-trance.html">At the Gates of Trance</a>.<br />53. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/jeevan.html">Jeevan</a>.<br />54. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/call.html">The Call</a>.<br /><br />VIII. <u>Reaching My Limits</u>.<br /><br />55. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/august-drama.html">August Drama</a>.<br />56. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/doubting-thomas.html">Doubting Thomas</a>.<br />57. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/gates-open.html">The Gates Open</a>.<br />58. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/limits-of-power.html">The Limits of Power</a>.<br />59. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/full-moon-new-moon.html">Full Moon, New Moon</a>.<br />60. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/year-ends.html">The Year Ends</a>.<br />61. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/7063.html">7,063</a>.<br /><br />IX. <u>Cracks in the Armor</u>.<br /><br />62. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/saint.html">The Saint</a>.<br />63. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/birthday-blessing.html">Birthday Blessing</a>.<br />64. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/premik.html">Premik</a>.<br />65. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/fight-on-block.html">Fight on the Block</a>.<br />66. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/peace-run-87.html">Peace Run '87</a>.<br />67. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/weight-and-lifting.html">Weight and Lifting</a>.<br />68. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/polishing-rough-diamond.html">Polishing the Rough Diamond</a>.<br /><br />X. <u>Beginning of the End</u>.<br /><br />69. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/flame-is-gone.html">The Flame is Gone</a>.<br />70. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/sundar.html">Sundar</a>.<br />71. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/lonely-winter.html">Lonely Winter</a>.<br />72. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/breaking-down.html">Breaking Down</a>.<br />73. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/lexicon.html">Lexicon</a>.<br />74. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-ventures.html">New Ventures</a>.<br />75. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/nurse.html">The Nurse</a>.<br /><br />XI. <u>Running Away</u>.<br /><br />76. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-goal-forms.html">A New Goal Forms</a>.<br />77. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/note.html">The Note</a>.<br />78. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/five-year-reunion.html">Five-Year Reunion</a>.<br />79. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/planning-part-deux.html">Planning (Part Deux)</a>.<br />80. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/audition.html">Audition</a>.<br />81. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/freedom.html">Freedom</a>.<br />82. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/called-back.html">Called Back</a>.<br />83. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/sit-down.html">The Sit Down</a>.<br /><br />XII. <u>The Old College Try</u>.<br /><br />84. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/sudhir.html">Sudhir</a>.<br />85. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/shambhus-offer.html">Shambhu's Offer</a>.<br />86. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/runnin-on-empty.html">Runnin' on Empty</a>.<br />87. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/bansidhar.html">Bansidhar</a>.<br />88. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/run-concludes.html">The Run Concludes</a>.<br />89. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/happy-birthday-mom.html">Happy Birthday Mom! </a><br />90. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/sports-day-89.html">Sport's Day '89</a>.<br />91. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/gaining-perspective.html">Gaining Perspective</a>.<br /><br />XIII. <u>Last Days</u>.<br /><br />92. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/settling-back-in.html">Settling Back In</a>.<br />93. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/la-petit-mort.html">La Petit Mort</a>.<br />94. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/palladium-prostitute-palanquin.html">The Palladium, The Prostitute &amp; The Palanquin</a>.<br />95. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/planning-part-deux.html">Preparing to Leave for Good</a>.<br />96. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/last-supper.html">The Last Supper</a>.<br />97. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/bhima-tejiyan.html">Bhima &amp; Tejiyan</a>.<br />98. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/interlude.html">Interlude</a>.<br /><br />XIV. <u>Starting Over</u>.<br /><br />99. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/starting-over.html">Starting Over</a>.<br />100. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/meeting-my-better-half.html">Meeting My Better Half</a>.<br />101. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/sumati.html">Sumati</a>.<br />102. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/visit-to-new-york.html">A Visit to New York</a>.<br />103. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/plan-develops.html">A Plan Develops</a>.<br />104. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/delayed-entry-program.html">Delayed Entry Program</a>.<br />105. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/berkeley.html">Berkeley</a>.<br />106. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/rememberance.html">Remembrance</a>.<br /><br />XV. <u>Joining the Navy</u>.<br /><br />107. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/in-navy.html">In the Navy</a>.<br />108. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/navy-intelligence.html">Navy Intelligence</a>.<br />109. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/games-begin.html">The Games Begin</a>.<br />110. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/class-187.html">Class 187</a>.<br />111. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/10/quitter.html">Quitter</a>.<br />112. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/11/life-begins-anew.html">Life Begins Anew</a>.<br />113. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/11/looking-back.html">Looking Back</a>.<br />114. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-new-home.html">My New Home</a>.<br />115. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/11/navy-chow.html">Navy Chow</a>.<br />116. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/11/mail-call.html">Mail Call</a>.<br />117. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/11/alone-at-sea.html">Alone at Sea</a>.<br />118. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/11/call-from-big-house.html">Call from the Big House</a>.<br />119. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/home-from-sea.html">Home from Sea</a>.<br />120. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/end-in-sight.html">The End in Sight</a>.<br />121. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/one-year.html">One Year! </a><br /><br />XVI. <u>Getting Schooled</u>.<br /><br />122. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/freedom.html">Freedom!</a><br />123. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/into-balance.html">Into Balance</a>.<br />124. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/re-awakening.html">Re-Awakening</a>.<br />125. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/in-december-1997-i-completed-my.html">Growing Family</a>.<br />126. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-guru-and-his-disciple.html">My Guru and His Disciple</a>.<br />127. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/lines-of-communication.html">Lines of Communication</a>.<br /><br />XVII. <u>The Last Test</u>.<br /><br />128. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/confidence-light.html">Confidence-Light</a>.<br />129. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/one-l.html">One L</a>.<br />130. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/blue-lotus.html">The Blue Lotus</a>.<br />131. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/board.html">The Board</a>.<br />132. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/in-memory-sudhir.html">In Memory: Sudhir</a>.<br />133. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/truth.html">The Truth</a>.<br />134. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/02/night-terrors.html">Night Terrors</a>.<br />135. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/02/bryon-granmo.html">Bryon Granmo</a>.<br />136. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/02/savitri.html">Savitri</a>.<br />137. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/02/last-words.html">Last Words</a>.<br />138. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/02/sudhirs-call.html">Sudhir's Call</a>.<br />139. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/02/conclusion.html">Conclusion</a>.<br /><br />XVIII. <u>Epilogue</u>.<br /><br />140. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/02/epilogue-my-hopes-for-center.html">My Hopes for the Center</a>.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">BOOK TWO</div><br /><br />I. <u>Taking Another Look</u>.<br /><br />141. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-to-discuss.html">More to Discuss</a>.<br />142. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/06/golden-boy.html">The Golden Boy</a>.<br />143. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/06/zero-sum-game.html">Zero Sum Game</a>.<br />144. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/07/cartwheels-in-sari-part-one.html">Cartwheels in a Sari (Part One)</a>.<br />145. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/07/cartwheels-in-sari-part-two.html">Cartwheels in a Sari (Part Two)</a>.<br />146. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/07/cartwheels-in-sari-part-three.html">Cartwheels in a Sari (Part Three)</a>.<br />147. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/07/ashrita.html">Ashrita</a>.<br />148. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/07/ranjana.html">Ranjana</a>.<br />149. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/gaining-influence.html">Gaining Influence</a>.<br />150. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/akuli.html">Akuli</a>.<br />151. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/objectivity.html">Objectivity</a>.<br />152. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/databir.html">Databir</a>.<br /><br />II. <u>A Seeming Paradox</u>.<br /><br />153. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/things-have-changed.html">Things Have Changed</a>.<br />154. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/paradox.html">Paradox</a>.<br />155. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/ethical-case.html">The Ethical Case</a>.<br />156. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/metaphysical-assumptions.html">Metaphysical Assumptions</a>.<br />157. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/sanyassa-tyaga.html">Sanyassa &amp; Tyaga</a>.<br />158. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/tantra.html">The Tantra</a>.<br />159. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/10/circling-back.html">Circling Back</a>.<br />160. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/10/god-realization.html">Realization</a>.<br />161. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/10/neuroanatomy-yoga.html">Neuroanatomy &amp; Yoga</a>.<br />162. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/10/crying-wolf_25.html">Crying Wolf</a>?<br />163. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/10/soliciting-topics.html">Soliciting Topics</a>.<br />164. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/unconditional-acceptance.html">Unconditional Acceptance</a>.<br /><br />III. <u>New Revelations</u>.<br /><br />165. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/organizational-cancer.html">Organizational Cancer</a>.<br />166. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/beauty-guest-post-by-sundari.html">Beauty -- A Guest Post by Sundari</a>.<br />167. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/bihagee.html">Bihagee - A Guest Post</a>.<br />168. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/outing.html">Outing</a>.<br />169. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/comments.html">Comments</a>.<br />170. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/quick-link.html">A Quick Link</a>.<br />171. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/outing-part-deux.html">Outing, Part Deux</a>.<br />172. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/hear-me-roar.html">Hear Me Roar</a>.<br />173. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/karen-armstrong-on-compassion.html">Karen Armstrong on Compassion</a>.<br />174. "<a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/even-enemies-can-show-respect.html">Even enemies can show respect</a>."<br /><br />IV. <u>Grateful Nevertheless</u>.<br /><br />175. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/organizational-chemo-part-one.html">Organizational Chemo</a>.<br />176. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/instructive-example.html">An Instructive Example</a>.<br />177. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/living-without-magic.html">Living Without Magic</a>.<br />178. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/anvil.html">The Anvil</a>.<br />179. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2014/07/bithika-guest-post.html" target="_blank">Bithika -- A Guest Post.</a><br />180. <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2014/10/suchatula-guest-post.html" target="_blank">Suchatula -- Guest Post</a>.<br />181. <a href="http://www.abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-break-with-past.html" target="_blank">A Break with the Past</a>.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-89061853813336573022014-12-25T13:00:00.000-08:002014-12-25T14:36:09.965-08:00A Break with the Past<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dybjXXy0g1h2xsdtm0BvF9Va2Agurg89jgZmWY7GAwi1EwvnPERRH_iWfpYNHOZ_CXq_QPeaLNiFv2KcfI20w' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0' /></div><br />Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-86334547037833529582014-10-08T16:34:00.000-07:002014-10-08T16:34:02.036-07:00Suchatula -- A Guest Post<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a3W17OAWF5M/VDXJI5SPWhI/AAAAAAAAA6g/Gbq6b5XUZbU/s1600/Winning%2Bthe%2BGrape.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a3W17OAWF5M/VDXJI5SPWhI/AAAAAAAAA6g/Gbq6b5XUZbU/s1600/Winning%2Bthe%2BGrape.jpeg" height="214" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">I have tried many times over the past 5 years to write about my experiences in the Centre (aka Sri Chinmoy Centre), what happened to shatter my faith in CKG (aka Chinmoy Kum</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">ar Ghose or Sri Chinmoy) and why I finally left but I always got stuck on all the details. Here is my attempt at telling you my story. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">I joined the Centre in December 1986. I was friends with <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/august-drama.html" target="_blank">Nirbachita</a> and <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/jeevan.html" target="_blank">Jeevan</a>, who are the sister and brother of Yogaloy. In August 1986, Liz went to New York for an August Celebrations to see what her brothers were doing. She heard about CKG and the Centre from them and thought she'd check it out for herself. Liz came back to California and told me all about CKG, the Centre and all the cool people she had met. Right from the start I believed everything she told me about CKG. She gave me a <a href="http://www.new-age-movements.com/images/Ckg-tpic.jpg" target="_blank">Transcendental Picture</a> and a few books to introduce me to his teaching. We started to attend the meditation classes in Cupertino, where <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/rick-gets-his-name.html" target="_blank">Giribar</a> was the Centre leader. For the first year I was not sure if that was the direction I wanted to go with my life. I was only 18 years old and I had just finished high school and started my first year of college. The perfect time for Centre recruitment! In October 1987, I asked if I could move to San Francisco to join the Centre there because I wanted to take my "spiritual life" seriously. For the next 20 years my life belonged to Sri Chinmoy, Master of the Universe, Avatar of the Era. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">My life in the Centre was a good one. I was happy. I went through my struggles like everyone else, but for the most part I was happy. I got in "trouble" a few times. Once, when I was 20 years old, for growing fond of a member of the opposite sex. Oh boy! CKG called me and gave me the ultimatum. Either I take my spiritual life seriously or I leave the Centre. He said that I still had my looks and that I would have no problem getting a boyfriend. I asked to stay because I felt that I was really blowing a great opportunity to be a disciple of this great master.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Sometime after I was put into the "Children Singers" group so that CKG could keep an eye on me. By that point, I was feeling so guilty for being weak and letting my <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/lexicon.html" target="_blank">vital</a> get me into trouble with "God." Being in that singing group was an entire story of its own. Basically, we were supposed to be the excellent disciples, to set an example for others to follow. We were scolded often for "liking" boys, wanting a boyfriend, some for cutting their hair, or anything else that displeased him. I felt that we were constantly getting tossed back and forth between "you are a good girl" and "you are breaking my heart." I did not really notice the manipulation until after I had left the Centre. We were all so eager to please him ALL THE TIME that we did not think we were being manipulated. Many of the members of the singing group were in the Centre since they were very little children. They grew up in the Centre, hence the name Children Singers (aka "Paree's Group").<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Things changed over the years. As the world opened up and the Eastern Block came into play with tons of new Centres opening around the world, CKG started to tighten up the ship. At the time, however, I did not know it was because of the stories starting to come out on the Internet. CKG got very strict with us. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">On the Christmas trips, we were to stay near by the hotel function rooms so that if he wanted to dictate poems or songs we would be there to write them down. In my personal experience, if I wanted to do anything, then I had to ask his permission. In New York, we would have to be at the court to sing while he played tennis. When there was no longer a tennis court he would ride his little carts in circles and we would stand along the fence singing. It was the same with the weight lifting. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Anyway, you get the idea, plus most of you were there and saw how it was over the years. We were the lucky ones. The privileged singers who got to spend loads of time in the presence of our great Master. I truly loved my life in the Centre, I loved my Master, who I trusted with my life, and I loved my friends, who were my real family. I could have happily lived my life in the Centre if only... <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Turns out CKG was just prepping his next generation of sex slaves. He had already had his way with the women of the generation before us and now it was our turn to receive his "Special Blessings." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">In December 2006, the Centre Christmas trip was in Turkey and Bulgaria. I was excited to go because I was about to celebrate my 20-year anniversary in the Centre. I remember on the flight over I was thinking how it had been such a long journey. I had gone through so much personal growth and I felt very happy with the progress that I had made in my 20 years on the path. I was 38 years old, I was confident and I felt that I had finally quieted my vital and no longer had any desire for a physical relationship. I had felt I no longer needed that experience in my life. I could happily live my life as a celibate "nun." I had made my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prasad" target="_blank">prasad</a> offering of 20 items and I carried it all the way to Antalya, Turkey. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">The afternoon that I was to celebrate my anniversary, I was in my hotel room and I heard a knock on my door. I opened it and it was a prominent disciple from the Ottawa Centre asking me where I had been. She looked nervous and anxious. I said I was in my room and asked what was going on? She said Guru was looking for me and I should go with her to her room so he could call me. Soon after we were in her room, Guru called and started asking me questions about my life. When he first asked me if I was ready to surrender I was nervous and afraid. He said if I was afraid then I was not ready to surrender. He got angry and hung up.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">The next day I had to go to the same person’s room so CKG could call me again. He asked how many boyfriends I had before I joined the Centre and with how many did I have sex. Did they "penetrate" me? When he asked that question, it made my heart start to race. Again I got nervous. I thought he was going to ask me to marry someone and have kids, but he said he would never ask me to do that. I had heard many years before that Guru had given Govinda – one of the other young singers -- a great opportunity by asking her to tell him about her past boyfriends and he would take away all her impurities. So, I thought that this was what was now happening to me. I thought it would be foolish to blow this opportunity out of fear of the unknown. I told him I was ready to surrender. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Sri Chinmoy asked me to go up to his hotel room. I do not remember what time it was, but it was late. I took my shoes off outside his door and knocked. He answered the door wearing short-shorts and a white singlet. He said come in, come in. I followed him into his hotel suite. There was a bedroom and a living room. The phone rang and he told me to remain very quiet. It was Shikha, another disciple of his, and he did not want anyone knowing that I was there with him alone in his room. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Again CKG began to ask me questions. He asked me what I thought about him, how did I see him? I told him that I saw him as my father, as my friend and as my Supreme. He asked me to embrace him and to touch his feet, then he asked me to place my head on his feet. He was sitting on the couch in the living room. I was nervous because I had never touched him before. He had blessed me on the head once or twice, but I never touched him. I did not know what to expect. I guess I thought I would have an amazing experience but I did not feel anything. He asked me if I felt anything. I told him that I had always wanted to do that and he just chuckled. He asked me how many years I had been on the path. I told him 20. He said that because I had been on the path for 20 years, the Supreme had very special love for me and that this opportunity the Supreme did not give to everyone. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Sri Chinmoy told me that he wanted me to have sex with a woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">It was the woman from Ottawa who had come to get me from my room earlier. He said it was not a "lesbian" thing. I was shocked and pretty damn freaked out. My body started to shake and my mind started to swirl. I was so nervous and afraid. I did not know what to do. I was not expecting those words to come out of his mouth. Woman or man it did not matter. We were supposed to be a celibate group. How could he ask me to have sex with anyone?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">I said, I do not know how to have sex with a woman, hoping that was going to get me out of this situation. He said she would show me what to do. He called her up to his room and asked us both to remove our clothes. We were standing in front of him while he sat on the couch watching us. He told us to embrace. Then he had us get on the floor. She started to do "stuff" to me and she would say, "He likes it when we do this." Clearly, she was "experienced" in doing what he liked to see.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">CKG then instructed me to go down on her. I was hesitant and he got mad at me and sternly said, "Do it!" I might as well have been stoned because my body was shaking so much and my head was spinning. I felt like I was on something. When your body takes on that much stress from your mind it puts you in a numb state. I started to kiss her stomach and I couldn't do it. I said, "This is not working for me." He said you do not like it? I said no, I do not like it. He told us to both go wash our hands and get dressed. CKG then asked the Canadian woman to leave. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Once she was gone, he concentrated on me and told me that my mind was so strong. He said that this was a special opportunity that the Supreme was giving me. At that point, I was so shocked and crushed, I did not want or need any "special opportunities" in my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">After leaving his room, I just wanted to die. This was not happening. How could this be happening? I trusted him with my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">I had to stop by the Canadian woman's room to pick up some things I had left there earlier. She wanted me to go in and talk. I was so pissed at her. I told her to give me my things. She told me that she did not like it either, but you just do it. I said, No! If you do not like it then you do not do it! I took my belongings and went back to my room and jumped in the shower. I desperately needed to wash her smell off of me. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">The next morning she called me and again wanted to talk. I told her to never call me again. Right after I hung up, CKG called. He asked if I thought my guru was a bad man?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">How could I answer that? After being in the Centre for so long and trusting him, I did not know what to think? I did not want to think. I put on my running shoes and went out the door. I had no money of my own and I was in foreign country. What the hell was I supposed to do? So many thoughts go through your mind. Luckily, I ran into Aruna. She was the one person who I was happy to see. Aruna was one of my dearest friends. I met her when she was 11 years old. I saw her grow up in the Centre. She was a baby when her parents joined. She never knew life without Guru. She had utter faith in him. I did not even think of telling her what happened. My life was turned upside down. How could I do the same to her? Plus CKG told me to never tell anyone what happened, especially Palash or one other person. What would happen to me if I started telling people what happened? Would I conveniently disappear? Would I accidentally end up falling over a balcony? I feared for my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Over the next few days my mind quieted down and I started to think that maybe I could do what he wanted me to do. It still made no sense, but I did not want to blow this opportunity if that was what it truly was. I started to think how could CKG be wrong? After so many years in the Centre, I figured I must be wrong and he must be right. I started to doubt myself. The next time CKG asked me into a private meeting, it was with him in his little room outside of the function hall. He said that my soul was so sad because the supreme was giving me this opportunity and I did not want it. He was talking in his quiet and sad voice. I told him that my mind had quieted and I was ready to try again. He said he will let me know when and I had to be ready. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">The next time I was approached by the same woman, we were in Bulgaria. I went back to her room two different times to do what he wanted us to do. Afterwards, he would call and ask us if we liked it or if we felt anything. Oh brother! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2014/07/bithika-guest-post.html" target="_blank">Bithika</a> was my roommate on that part of the trip. She arrived a few days later. One day I had gone into the room and she was crying. The night before she had been out late. When she returned, she went straight into the shower. I figured CKG had asked her to do the same thing he had me do. I got super pissed off.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">I was so mad that the next time he saw me he summoned me to his private room next to the function room and asked me what happened. He said he was frightened when he saw my face. My mind came back stronger than ever and I could not shake the feeling that what he was asking us to do was wrong. He had me kneel in front of him and again he concentrated on me. He said that I belonged to him. He touched my head and said, this belongs to me. Then he touched my heart and said, this belongs to me. And then with the back of his hand he touched the side of my breast and said, this belong longs to me. I could only think to myself, “no, it does not,” but I did not dare say that out loud. I was afraid of him.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Later that day I "won" the prize for having the best meditation. It was a grape (see the photo above). What a revelation! I now understood why people were winning the best meditation. It was all about damage control! He knew I was not happy and he needed to fix things fast. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">After our part of that trip was over, I went with <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/bihagee.html" target="_blank">Bihagee</a> to Sofia, Bulgaria to visit her parents. I never spoke to either Bihagee or Bithika during that trip about what was going on. I had no idea that Bihagee was also having the same "experience" that I had, only with another person. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Finally I came back to San Francisco and tried to get on with my life. I was messed up! CKG had given me his personal numbers and asked me to call him at certain times while he was still traveling. He asked me how I was feeling. When I told him that I felt like my vital door had been blown open, he laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">As the months went, by I grew more and more angry. By July 2007, I could take it no more. I told Palash how I was not doing well in the Centre and I did not know what to do. I never told her what happened because he told me not to tell her. She gave me the best advice, write guru a letter and tell him what's going on. I did but it was not what she was thinking. I told him that I did not feel at all spiritual and that I felt like I was deceiving my friends, my family and myself. I told him that I did not want to have sex with anyone but if I did have to have sex then I wanted it to be with a man but not with him and not with a woman. I was hoping to get thrown out of the Centre but instead he called me. He asked me for forgiveness. He asked, “Can you not forgive me as I have forgiven you so many times?” He said he would never ask me to do anything like that again. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">August Celebrations came and he was completely on damage control. I was invited to the house every night, but he would never talk to me. I sometimes caught him looking at me though squinted eyes. I think he did not know what to do with me. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/gurus-death.html" target="_blank">On October 11, 2007 he died</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">I was in San Francisco and we got a call. CKG had died. Guru died. It took some time for the reality to sink in. We flew out to New York for the memorial. All the time I was there I could only feel relief. I was finally free. So many people came for the funeral. I tried to feel something more but he had already killed all the love that I had for him. I loved my friends and I was sad that they were suffering, but I was glad he was gone. I played my part and went through the motions but I was like a zombie. Nothing inside. I stayed in the Centre for another year and a few months. I did not want to leave the life that I had known for over 22 years. I loved my friends. They were my family. We grew up together. They saw me struggle over the years.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">By December 2008, I knew I needed to make a big change. I decided to go to Germany to stay with Aruna and her parents, Projjwal and Karali. We were all very close and I felt like if I was to make an attempt at saving my spiritual life, then staying with them was my best option. I booked my flight for Germany for February 14, 2009. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">In January 2009, a disciple I knew named James was living in Norway. He started emailing a few of us from the SF Centre. He was bored in Oslo and wanted to see how we were all doing. I emailed him back and soon we were emailing each other daily. He was a refreshing change to my life. I enjoyed reading his emails and started to think that he was much more interesting than I ever knew.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">One day he asked me if I had ever read Sevika's story. Strangely enough, I immediately got defensive and said you cannot believe what you read on the Internet. Then I stopped myself and thought, “What the hell am I saying???” I had never read anything on the Internet to do with anything against CKG. I decided to read her story.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Oh man! &nbsp;As I was reading, I knew it was all true. There were things that she said that were so similar to what he asked of me. I could not deny the truth. I sent James a message and said we need to talk right now! I called him and he did not know what to expect. I told him that I believed Sevika's story and I told him what happened to me. James was so shocked and he completely believed me. He said he was going to leave the Centre and that I had to leave too. I knew he was right. By telling him, I had crossed the point of no return. I let everyone believe that I was going to Germany. I packed up my room to rent it out. When the day came for me to go, all my roommates went to the Centre meditation. My mother came to SF and picked me and all my belongings up and drove me to my brother’s house.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">I was free! I was a major mess, but I was free!!! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Within a week I got a job and a car. I wanted to move on with my life ASAP. However, I got really sick. My life went through a traumatic experience. I no longer believed in anything and I could not see the point of living. Nothing made sense anymore. Luckily, James believed me and it was only his friendship that got me trough the most difficult time of my life. I honestly do not know what would have come of me if it were not for him sticking by me and believing in me. Although he was in Norway, we kept each other going by chatting on Skype almost everyday. He went through his own melt down. He also got very sick. Something happens deep inside when your faith in the person you trusted most turns out to be a fraud. The way your body shuts down is not in your control. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Finally, after months on our own thinking we would never see or hear from anyone in the Centre ever again, things started to change. Nirbachita, now out of the Centre herself, contacted me. After some serious patience on her part, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/things-have-changed.html" target="_blank">I opened up to her and told her my story</a>. By Nirbachita and Yogaloy knowing me, believing me and trusting me, so much has changed. Without them I am not sure if my story would have been told. I owe many thanks to them both.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">It has been over five and a half years now since I walked away from the Centre. My life is very much worth living. I do not regret having been in the Centre because I met some of you wonderful people in the Centre. I am most thankful for meeting James. We would not have met if we were not in the Centre. I love him dearly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">All that said, nothing will ever excuse Sri Chinmoy for his behavior. <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/242344320/Testimonials-of-Sexual-Exploitation-Committed-by-Sri-Chinmoy" target="_blank">As the many stories come out</a>, we see more and more how he was manipulative, deceitful, and utterly self-satisfying. He preached the "Truth" but in the end he was the biggest liar. Those who know the truth about him and still support his lie are just as guilty as CKG himself. He was truly a sociopath in every sense of the term. I will never forgive him. I will give him no credit for my spirituality. I have struggled all these years with faith, trust and God. I figured, if that was God's way then I do not need God. &nbsp;I do not believe in "God" nor do I feel the need to believe in God. I believe in myself and those I love. I believe in goodness and honestly. I trust my heart. It did not let me fall prey to CKG's deception after the fact. It gave me the strength to stand up for myself and tell him, No! It took me years after leaving to truly know that I was right and he was wrong. My only regret is that he died before he could be held accountable for his actions.</span>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-41360449301619419132009-11-29T19:35:00.000-08:002009-11-29T19:40:05.277-08:00The Anvil<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SxAdkTGgTjI/AAAAAAAAA4o/hWz205BtxcA/s1600/Hephaestus+by+Coustou+at+the+Louvre.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SxAdkTGgTjI/AAAAAAAAA4o/hWz205BtxcA/s400/Hephaestus+by+Coustou+at+the+Louvre.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408855661912018482" /></a> Though it drives many of my readers crazy when I say it, I am and will always be grateful to Sri Chinmoy.<br /><br />He changed my life for the better.<br /><br />That's an objective fact. I may not know much, but I <span style="font-style:italic;">do</span> know who I was before I joined the Center and who I had become by the time I decided to leave it. I was a better person.<br /><br />For that, I'll always be grateful.<br /><br />A lot of my friends have argued that Guru did nothing, that he added no value to our lives as disciples. In effect, they're arguing that whatever good experiences we had -- whatever progress we may have made in our personal development -- was the result of our own efforts, our own self-discipline.<br /><br />I've no doubt this is true for them.<br /><br />It's not so for me. For a few years in the mid-1980s, I experienced an exalted sense of being. Was it <span style="font-style:italic;">actually</span> exalted? It felt that way to me, and Guru made it possible.<br /><br />I'm not selling myself short. I played a part in my own experience, obviously, and perhaps the most important part. But to say that I could have achieved the breakthroughs in my meditations that I had all by myself would be inaccurate. I can only speak for myself in this regard, but when I meditated in front of Guru, he brought something powerful to the table.<br /><br />A few months back, a friend of mine challenged me on this point. I told him that if I had been meditating on a rock -- rather than in front of Guru -- I would not have had the same profound (profound to me anyway) experiences I had had meditating with Guru.<br /><br />"Have you ever tried meditating on a rock?" my friend asked. "Maybe you would have."<br /><br />It's a fair point, I suppose. Maybe if I had devoted hours of concentrated effort meditating on a rock I would have had the same experiences. I doubt it, but perhaps. Even so, I'm still grateful to Guru.<br /><br />And there are some very tangible reasons for me to be grateful.<br /><br />Were it not for Guru, I would never have met any of these people: <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/gurus-death.html">Sahishnu</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/prakash.html">Prakash</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-leader.html">Sevika</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/rick.html">Giribar</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/gods-banner.html">Ketan</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/phanindra.html">Phanindra</a>, <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SAEiZZEN1PI/AAAAAAAAANI/oZRgl8kNbfo/s1600-h/Bipin+by+Projjwal">Bipin</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/pulin.html">Pulin</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/jigisha.html">Jigisha</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/anugata.html">Anugata</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-dont-get-my-name.html">Ranjana</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/limits-of-power.html">Lavanya</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/saint.html">Jayanti</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/premik.html">Premik</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/peace-run-87.html">Shambhu</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/sundar.html">Sundar</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-ventures.html">Sunil, Shraddha, or Dhruva</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/shambhus-offer.html">Trishatur</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/08/bansidhar.html">Bansidhar</a>, the <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/settling-back-in.html">Rocherolles (Gangadhar, Gayatri, Narendra, and Durdam)</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/09/bhima-tejiyan.html">Bhima and Tejiyan</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/in-memory-sudhir.html">Sudhir</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/06/golden-boy.html">Pinak</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/07/ashrita.html">Ashrita</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/databir.html">Databir</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/things-have-changed.html">Suchatula</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/beauty-guest-post-by-sundari.html">Sundari</a>, or <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/bihagee.html">Bihagee</a>.<br /><br />And that's just a short list.<br /><br />Meeting these people alone was worth the price of admission, even if that price meant that Guru deceived me. It was, without a doubt, worth it to me.<br /><br />Finally, even if Guru brought nothing to our relationship -- even if he was simply the anvil upon which I hammered my own identity -- then I am grateful for that anvil.<br /><br />I'll always be so.<br /><br /><i>The photo above </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus"><i>shows Hephaestus</i></a><i>, Greek god of blacksmiths among other things</i>.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-38331491160786420102009-11-29T13:54:00.000-08:002009-11-29T13:56:24.450-08:00Living Without Magic<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SxANugCnBsI/AAAAAAAAA4g/wBl4fBhugoI/s1600/Young+M.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 178px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SxANugCnBsI/AAAAAAAAA4g/wBl4fBhugoI/s400/Young+M.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408838244997990082" /></a> I take my <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Coffee">coffee</a> black.<br /><br />I prefer it that way, without the milk and sugar that makes it so much easier to get addicted to in the beginning. I feel the same about religion.<br /><br />Magic and magical thinking are the milk and sugar of spirituality. It's what makes embarking on a religious life so attractive in the beginning.<br /><br />Perhaps it's even necessary at the start, even though in the end it becomes a disability. Like the old analogy of the two thorns -- sometimes it's necessary to use one thorn (or negative quality) to help extract another one stuck in your foot.<br /><br />Perhaps stories of saints, miracles, and the supernatural are necessary in the beginning to inspire one to tread the path of yoga. In the end, though, belief in these stories -- magic as I call it -- must be discarded, just as one discards the second thorn after it has helped you remove the one in your foot.<br /><br />I'm not saying that the path of conscious personal development -- the path of yoga -- need be bitter like the coffee I'm addicted to (not all the time anyway). Nor am I arguing that we need to forsake the mystical and vastly unexplored world of our subjective consciousness.<br /><br />But it's imperative at some point not to cede control of one's life over to the imaginary.<br /><br />At some point, the individual must stand up on his or her own. At some point, one must stop relying -- stop hoping really -- for magical help from the beyond and instead take control of one's own life. This is especially true after one's spiritual master has died.<br /><br />(Unlike some, I still believe in the utility of the guruvada -- the taking up of a guru on the path of yoga. Why a person would <span style="font-style:italic;">ever</span> surrender their decision making ability to a brother or sister disciple after the master's passing, however, is beyond me.)<br /><br />I found a nice little example of this point in an anecdote recalled by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahendranath_Gupta">Mahendranath Gupta</a>.<br /><br />Mahendranath was known by many names, but I suppose most folks know him by the titles Paramahansa Yogananda gave him in <span style="font-style:italic;">Autobiography of a Yogi</span>: "Master Mahasaya" or the "<a href="http://www.crystalclarity.com/yogananda/chap9.html">Blissful Devotee</a>."<br /><br />When <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/book.html">I had read </a><span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/book.html">Autobiography</a></span><a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/book.html"> as a kid</a>, I'd assumed the title "master" meant just that: spiritual master -- a title denoting inner achievement or self-mastery. And, in part, that may have been how Swami Yogananda meant it in the book.<br /><br />As I learned later, though, Sri M (as he's known within Ramakrishna circles) had been called "master" for most of his adult life.<br /><br />In fact, Sri Ramakrishna himself referred to his intimate disciple as "master."<br /><br />That's because Sri M worked as a schoolmaster by profession. He was about 27 when he first met Thakur and had graduated college with distinction. He had a small family to look after and was living at home with his parents and other relatives. His living situation was extremely stressful.<br /><br />It was so stressful, in fact, that it was driving M crazy -- literally.<br /><br />One rainy night -- on the verge of committing suicide -- M rushed out of his family home intent on not returning. His devoted wife insisted upon following him. After a few miles in the rain, the horse drawn carriage they were riding in broke down in the mud. More disconsolate that ever, M eventually sought shelter in the middle of the night from a relative.<br /><br />The next day -- while strolling through the gardens of Dakshineswar -- M's cousin asked him if he'd like to visit a sadhu. That sadhu, of course, was Sri Ramakrishna.<br /><br />The course of M's life was permanently altered.<br /><br />For the next four years, M would visit Thakur just about every weekend (and at any other opportunity he could find). Then, after returning home for the night, M would stay up late writing down the events that had transpired that day with Thakur from memory. For the remainder of the week -- until his next visit to Dakshineswar -- M would go over and over the events of the previous weekend, drawing out the details of every conversation, every utterance.<br /><br />That was M's sadhana for about four years, which resulted in the <span style="font-style:italic;">Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna</span> or as originally known the "<a href="http://www.kathamrita.org/KathamritaMain.htm"><i>Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita</i></a>."<br /><br />Then, in 1886, Sri Ramakrishna died.<br /><br />M was devastated by the death of his master and friend. He found it difficult to write or even talk about the events surrounding Thakur's passing. In his grief, M looked for a sign of his master's unseen hand in his life. Then, one day, while waiting for a trolley to take him to work, M found his sign.<br /><br />He tells the story this way:<br /><br /><blockquote><i>Thakur had just given up the body.<br /><br />I was then a teacher in the Oriental Seminary. I was headmaster of three schools at a time. I had to teach for an hour in each school. I had to go there by palanquin, at times also by tram.<br /><br />Once, I was changing trams at the </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrabazar"><i>Burrabazar</i></a><i> when I saw a sadhu there. His face was similar to Thakur's. He had his seat there. He was like a child.<br /><br />I would go and stand beside him daily. When the sun was bright, I used to hold an umbrella over him. Seeing him, Thakur would fill my mind.<br /><br />Once, he favored me by asking if I could help him take a train to </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howrah"><i>Howrah</i></a><i>. I said "yes." Thereafter I bought his ticket and helped him entrain to Howrah.<br /><br />He then kindly gave me a small piece of paper saying, "Put it in a case and keep it with you as an amulet. You will never be in want -- your travails will end."<br /><br />After the train left, I walked on happily carrying it with me until I reached the </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Howrah_Bridge-1901.jpg"><i>Pontoon Bridge of Howrah</i></a><i>. As soon as I cast a glance towards Dakshineswar, I was reminded of Thakur's words and felt downcast with shame.<br /><br />I touched the paper with my forehead and threw it into the Ganga.<br /><br />I felt ashamed of myself. I realized that Thakur was always looking after me. For he had said, "What is there for you to worry about? You already have the privilege of having a guru." The moment I remembered these great words of his, I was overwhelmed with shame.<br /><br />Then I returned home reassured, full of bliss.</i></blockquote>(M., The Apostle and the Evangelist, Vol. 8, pp. 217-218.)<br /><br />Sri M is a good example for anyone treading the path of yoga. After the passing of his guru, he didn't forsake his master or forget about him. On the contrary, he spent the rest of his life -- which lasted until 1932 -- reflecting on those four years in the early 1880s.<br /><br />He focused upon publishing his diaries -- the <span style="font-style:italic;">Gospel</span> -- and encouraging all those he came in contact with, including the young <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogananda">Mukunda Lal Ghosh</a>, to tread the path of <img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 206px; height: 250px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SxAM9TfOglI/AAAAAAAAA4Y/PQn6gr4Pdq0/s400/Sri+M+classic.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408837399814767186" />yoga.<br /><br />Sri M, however, did not engage in any further magical thinking.<br /><br />The message is clear. For those of us who haven't already done so, let's give up the magical thinking that helped us through our spiritual undergraduate program in the Center. Let us release our dreams of rainbows and unicorns (and our nightmares of darkness and hostile forces).<br /><br />Instead, let's stand up on our own two feet and find the spiritual life right here on Earth. Let's find the spiritual in the human gesture, not the mysterious divine symbol.<br /><br />Ultimately, the path of yoga is about the individual. It's about becoming the supreme individual. To do that, one must give up all reliance on forces and guides outside oneself.<br /><br />Until you're ready, willing, and able to shoulder the burden of your own life, you'll never truly be of use to anyone else.<br /><br /><i>At top, that's Sri M some years after his master's death. Just above is the more classic shot of him in old age, sitting near the </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Panchavati_Ramakrishna.jpg"><i>Panchavati</i></a><i> at </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakshineswar_Kali_Temple"><i>Dakshineswar</i></a><i>. </i><a href="http://kathamritabhavan.org/"><i>Here's a nice site</i></a><i> devoted to Sri M's home, with some interesting photos.</i>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-18434132645908201592009-11-26T12:38:00.000-08:002009-11-26T13:23:49.944-08:00An Instructive Example<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Sw7x1GSSnxI/AAAAAAAAA4I/rfgZFJTZ-8A/s1600/Clarsach.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 246px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Sw7x1GSSnxI/AAAAAAAAA4I/rfgZFJTZ-8A/s320/Clarsach.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408526097041235730" /></a>It's not a perfect example.<br /><br />The cancer eating away at the Catholic Church isn't the same as that corroding the Center. But it's instructive.<br /><br />Particularly in how the organization is now cooperating -- perhaps reluctantly -- with independent investigators to bring the truth to light.<br /><br />According to this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/26/world/AP-EU-Ireland-Catholic-Abuse.html?_r=1&amp;hp"><i>New York Times</i> article</a>, after decades of turning a blind eye, the Vatican appointed a veteran clerical diplomat to address the scandal in Ireland.<br /><br />An Irish governmental Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was then established and the Irish Archbishop then began to cooperate.<br /><br />The full Report by Commission of Investigation into Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin can be <a href="http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504">found here</a>.<br /><br />The report is long, but it's worth a few minutes to scroll through <a href="http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Part%201.pdf/Files/Part%201.pdf">the first section</a> and skim through the commission's mandate and its broad findings, some of which seem particularly apropos to the situation now facing the Center's leadership.<br /><br />Of particular interest is the organizational culture of secrecy, the active cover-up by leadership, and the fact that a brave few were willing to speak up.<br /><br />The takeaway point is that here's an example of how a religious organization -- however late -- turned its attention to its own behavior.<br /><br />Painful as it is -- embarrassing as it is -- an open and honest inquiry conducted by uninterested, neutral investigators is the the only option for an organization facing this kind of rot from inside if it wants to have any sense of relevance to the outside world.<br /><br /><i>Credit for the image of the Clarsach or Irish Harp </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GrandfatherJoe"><i>goes here</i></a><i>.</i>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-89468878445608485352009-11-25T08:10:00.000-08:002009-11-27T09:00:27.596-08:00Organizational Chemo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Sw1XQi2V2dI/AAAAAAAAA34/jtm18ml1kMQ/s1600/Chittaranjan+Das.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Sw1XQi2V2dI/AAAAAAAAA34/jtm18ml1kMQ/s320/Chittaranjan+Das.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408074669286087122" /></a>Have you ever heard of the Alipore bomb case?<br /><br />On April 30, 1908, two Indian revolutionaries tried to kill a British magistrate known for handing down harsh sentences against other freedom fighters. They missed their target. The bomb they threw landed in the wrong carriage, killing the wife and daughter of an English barrister.<br /><br />Within just a couple of days, the British arrested 33 suspects, including the suspected ring leader, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurobindo_Ghosh">Aurobindo Ghosh</a>. Aurobindo, who was educated at King's College, Cambridge University, retained the pro bono services of the hitherto unknown defense lawyer Chittaranjan Das.<br /><br />C.R. Das, pictured, faced an uphill battle. The trial lasted a year, included more than 200 witnesses, and more than 5,000 exhibits. On top of it all, he had a client who was his intellectual equal.<br /><br />You might think that having a smart client would be an asset to the trial lawyer. Oftentimes, however, the client thinks he knows best and can't resist being a backseat driver at the trial -- scribbling notes to the lawyer, dictating trial tactics.<br /><br />During the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alipore_bomb_case">Alipore bomb case</a> trial, Sri Aurobindo had trouble fighting the urge to feed notes to C.R. Das and to suggest strategy. Then he received a "command from within" telling him to, in essence, let his lawyer do his job.<br /><br />In the end, 17 of 36 defendants were acquitted, including Sri Aurobindo. (Sri Aurobindo's younger brother, Barindra, was one of two found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Their sentences were later commuted to life, and in 1920 they both received amnesty.)<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittaranjan_Das">C.R. Das</a> went on to become a leading figure in the independence movement of India. But before we leave his story, let me suggest that C.R. Das was the best kind of lawyer. He wasn't a tool for his client's whim.<br /><br />He didn't restrict his advice to good news. He wasn't a yes man.<br /><br />I think it's safe to say that C.R. Das told his clients what they <span style="font-style:italic;">needed</span> to hear, not what they wanted to hear. That's what a good lawyer does.<br /><br />The client never likes to hear bad news, but it's often the only medicine that will help.<br /><br />So it is with the Center.<br /><br />The Center as an organization faces a threat to its existence that is not of its making. It is suffering from a late stage organizational cancer that can only be cured by radical action -- action that I fear the Center's leadership would rather not hear about, much less consider.<br /><br />The outlines of this action have already been put forth in this excellent <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/beauty-guest-post-by-sundari.html?showComment=1257991235137#c1581234970045364147">comment by reader "Legal Eagle."</a> I don't know who "Legal Eagle" is, but at the heart of his or her advice is this: the need for an independent investigation.<br /><br />Like it or not, that's the only course of action that can save the Center as an organization.<br /><br />To be precise, it's the only <span style="font-style:italic;">voluntary</span> action the leadership of the Center can take. There are, of course, involuntary possibilities.<br /><br />It is, I suspect, only a matter of time before a major media outlet takes an interest in this story. Imagine, for example, if any of <a href="http://www.ashrita.com/media">these individuals</a> take an interest in the sordid events that have been revealed over the last few weeks. Although indirect, the ensuing publicity nightmare would force unpredictable changes upon the Center.<br /><br />Likewise -- though I have no knowledge of any concrete plans by anyone in this regard -- I'd assess the likelihood of legal action over the near to mid-term as high. What a misfortune that would be for all involved. In this regard, let me make one thing clear to my friends in the Center.<br /><br />Though I've been asked, I've advised nobody about litigation against the Center. Nor shall I do so. Though it's my profession, litigation is -- by its very nature -- a destructive path. It should be avoided at all costs.<br /><br />I won't be a part of such an action.<br /><br />I don't think I'm giving away any secret, however, when I say that despite its destructive nature, litigation is good at solving some types of problems, one of which is a corporate board of directors that doesn't follow formalities, that doesn't investigate reported wrongdoing, and that revokes the membership rights of its members without due process.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the leadership of the Center should take heed. Voluntary reform is cheaper, it provides certainty, and it affords some measure of control. These are things that I expect the Center's corporate counsel already knows. In this case, corporate counsel's challenge is to convince the rest of the Center's board members of this.<br /><br />Like all corporate counsel, however, it should never be forgotten that the duty of an organization's lawyer is <span style="font-style:italic;">always</span> to the organization. Where the organization's interests diverge from the interests of the corporate counsel's fellow board members, the lawyer's duty is to the organization.<br /><br />In this case, the Center is sick and only a neutral, independent quest for the truth will save it.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-68989462825027023432009-11-22T11:02:00.000-08:002012-06-22T16:32:29.419-07:00"Even enemies can show respect."If you haven't yet taken the time to view Karen Armstrong's presentation below, I'd encourage you to do so. It's about 25 minutes long and touches on many of the important issues facing us all. (Hat tip to my sister Liz for suggesting the video, and to <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/hear-me-roar.html?showComment=1258843627316#c1863547075297181070">this anonymous commenter</a> for suggesting Ms. Armstrong's work more generally.)<br /><br />In her talk, Ms. Armstrong uses a story from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad">Iliad</a> to underscore the importance of sympathy and compassion. It just so happens that I watched the movie Troy last night and was moved very much by that very scene as dramatized by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_O%27Toole">Peter O'Toole</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_pitt">Brad Pitt</a>.<br /><br />If you're not already familiar with the story or have not already watched the movie, the setup for the scene below is that the great Greek hero Achilles (Pitt) has just killed the great Trojan hero Hector in battle. After killing Hector, Achilles drags Hector's body behind his chariot and back to the Greek camp.<br /><br />Under the dead of night, the king of Troy, Priam (O'Toole), sneaks into the Greek camp and begs Achilles to return Hector's body.<br /><br />Watch the clip on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AncngiPaStU">YouTube here</a>.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-55527717237627407142009-11-22T10:39:00.000-08:002009-11-22T10:44:57.492-08:00Karen Armstrong on Compassion<div style="text-align: center;"><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"> <param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/KarenArmstrong_2008-stream-[None]_xxlow.flv&amp;su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/KarenArmstrong-2008.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=234&amp;introDuration=13000&amp;adDuration=0&amp;postAdDuration=0&amp;adKeys=talk=karen_armstrong_makes_her_ted_prize_wish_the_charter_fo;year=2008;theme=is_there_a_god;theme=ted_prize_winners;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;theme=bold_predictions_stern_warnings;event=TED2008;&amp;preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;"><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/KarenArmstrong_2008-stream-[None]_xxlow.flv&amp;su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/KarenArmstrong-2008.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=234&amp;introDuration=13000&amp;adDuration=0&amp;postAdDuration=0&amp;adKeys=talk=karen_armstrong_makes_her_ted_prize_wish_the_charter_fo;year=2008;theme=is_there_a_god;theme=ted_prize_winners;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;theme=bold_predictions_stern_warnings;event=TED2008;"></embed></object></div>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-50064776599581203822009-11-19T09:01:00.000-08:002009-11-19T09:22:29.695-08:00Hear Me Roar<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SwV6nl-ysXI/AAAAAAAAA3g/s4CNWnrIC-Q/s1600/Helen+Reddy.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405861748357116274" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 206px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 208px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SwV6nl-ysXI/AAAAAAAAA3g/s4CNWnrIC-Q/s400/Helen+Reddy.jpg" border="0" /></a>The time for former women disciples to come together, "in numbers too big to ignore" as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Woman">Helen Reddy</a> sings in her famous song, is now.<br /><br />With the huge exception of Jayanti Tamm -- and her book <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.jayantitamm.com"><em>Cartwheels in a Sari</em></a> -- there have been precious few examples of what the disciple life was like from a woman's perspective.<br /><br />That should change.<br /><br />There are now scores of women who spent significant time in the Center leading extremely disciplined lives, who are now living outside the shadow of the Center, standing on their own, each of whom have distinct and unique voices.<br /><br />I'd really like to hear from them (you all know who you are).<br /><br />And I don't mean just in guest posts here (though I love them). What I'm really advocating is a site for women, by women. Something like a spiritual <a href="http://www.doublex.com/">Double X site</a>.<br /><br />I take inspiration again from Jayanti, who is perhaps laying the foundation for such a site at her blog -- read the latest <a href="http://www.jayantitamm.com/Links/blog.html">lion's roar here</a>.<br /><br /><em>That's </em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Reddy"><em>Helen Reddy</em></a><em> in the photo above.</em>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-73838199760172902072009-11-17T19:50:00.000-08:002009-11-17T19:55:57.323-08:00Outing, Part Deux<div style="text-align: center;"><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"> <param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/PhilZimbardo_2008-medium.flv&amp;su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/PhilZimbardo-2008.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=272&amp;introDuration=16500&amp;adDuration=4000&amp;postAdDuration=2000&amp;adKeys=talk=philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil;year=2008;theme=how_we_learn;theme=how_the_mind_works;theme=to_boldly_go;event=TED2008;&amp;preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;"><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/PhilZimbardo_2008-medium.flv&amp;su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/PhilZimbardo-2008.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=272&amp;introDuration=16500&amp;adDuration=4000&amp;postAdDuration=2000&amp;adKeys=talk=philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil;year=2008;theme=how_we_learn;theme=how_the_mind_works;theme=to_boldly_go;event=TED2008;"></embed></object></div>We've already discussed the <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/outing.html">Oliver Sipple principle</a>.<br /><br />The principle being that I have no intention of disclosing the names of women currently in the Center (or out of the Center for that matter) who have been implicated in Guru's sex ring.<br /><br />Like most rules, however, the Sipple principle admits an exception.<br /><br />In the gay rights context, it seems that most people don't have a big problem "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outing">outing</a>" a person's private sexual orientation when hypocrisy is involved.<br /><br />The cleanest example of this would be a right-wing, "family values" politician who <span style="font-style:italic;">actively</span> works against the interests of gays, but in private is a closeted homosexual.<br /><br />That's hypocritical.<br /><br />In cases like that, there doesn't appear to be a groundswell of sympathy for keeping the hypocritical politician's private life private. Better to out him.<br /><br />The exception applies here, too.<br /><br />It's one thing for our sister disciples to be going about the tough business of trying to lead a life in the Center while privately grappling with the pain of their own abuse.<br /><br />It's quite another for any of these victims of Guru's sexual abuse to <span style="font-style:italic;">actively</span> work in concert with the Center to tear down the reputations of the courageous women who have thus far spoken out or to actively deceive current disciples about what they themselves <span style="font-style:italic;">know</span> to be true.<br /><br />Though I hope it never comes to that, such women <span style="font-style:italic;">should</span> be outed.<br /><br />What I'd really like to see -- and what I've blogged about before -- is someone, <span style="font-style:italic;">anyone</span>, to stand up for the truth, to stand up for what's right, even if it means paying a personal price for doing so. That's what I'd like to see.<br /><br />It's really the flip side to the much more common phenomena of going along with the crowd, of not rocking the boat, of standing by while others get hurt.<br /><br />A lot of research has gone into what makes people compliant to authority, even when that authority asks the individual to do something wrong, even when the order requires the individual to hurt someone else. Preeminent among such research is the work done by <a href="http://www.zimbardo.com/">Professor Philip G. Zimbardo</a>.<br /><br />Professor Zimbardo is famous for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_study">1971 Stanford prison experiment</a>. In that study, Prof. Zimbardo demonstrated how ordinary people can be corrupted by the roles they play and the environment in which they work. He's written a relatively new book called <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.lucifereffect.com/">The Lucifer Effect</a></span> on the subject, but it's the flip side of this research that I'm more interested in here.<br /><br />The antidote for this evil of our general willingness to go along with whatever is dictated to us from the authority figure even at the expense of fellow human beings is what Prof. Zimbardo calls the "heroic imagination."<br /><br />The idea seems to be that if one's own personal psychological narrative is that "I'm a hero in waiting" -- waiting for an opportunity to stand up to the "man" even at personal cost to oneself -- then the chance that you'll cave under pressure from authority or peer pressure is minimized.<br /><br />Honestly, I'll be doing you a great disservice to write any more about this.<br /><br />Take 25 minutes and watch Prof. Zimbardo's talk to the audience at <a href="http://www.ted.com/">TED</a>. (And if you haven't yet discovered TED, take some time there and explore some of the wonderful talks available there.)<br /><br />It is particularly relevant to our experiences in the Center and the current situation facing all of us.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-31470175788500469512009-11-17T11:10:00.000-08:002009-11-17T11:17:40.116-08:00A Quick LinkHere's a <a href="http://www.jayantitamm.com/Links/blog.html">disturbing blog post by</a> Jayanti.<br /><br />If you haven't yet read her wonderful memoir, <em><a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307393920">Cartwheels in a Sari</a></em>, please go out and do so. It's a wonderful and moving read.<br /><br />And if you haven't yet read my own early history with Jayanti, you can <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/saint.html">look back here</a>.<br /><br />Thanks for the post, Jayanti.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-89670821012336793012009-11-16T22:46:00.000-08:002009-11-17T08:15:12.630-08:00Comments<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SwIrZPvtz3I/AAAAAAAAA3Y/KWh54NSgyVo/s1600/The+Siren+by+John+William+Waterhouse.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 276px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SwIrZPvtz3I/AAAAAAAAA3Y/KWh54NSgyVo/s400/The+Siren+by+John+William+Waterhouse.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5404930215521406834" /></a>To a blogger, the promise of the comment function located at the bottom of each post is like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirens">Siren's call</a>.<br /><br />It lures you in with notions of fair dialogue, engaging discussions, and interesting Socratic clashes of thought.<br /><br />Then you're dashed on the rocks.<br /><br />The reality is, left unchecked, unmoderated online comment forums quickly devolve into havens of the angry and the deranged. Thus, one's first instinct is to moderate.<br /><br />In the early going, moderating blog comments is not a bad solution. When you start, traffic to your blog isn't typically very heavy and neither are the comments. But once you've built a forum that attracts interesting comments by earnest and informed readers -- once you've built an audience -- a phenomena seemingly unique to the Internet occurs.<br /><br />The trolls are born.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)">Wikipedia defines the term</a> this way:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><blockquote>In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.</blockquote><blockquote></blockquote></span>That's where we find ourselves now.<br /><br />Together, we've developed a forum of concerned readers and thus an audience for trolls and others unconcerned with our purposes here: dialogue and a search for the truth. Once trolls appear, moderating comments becomes more challenging.<br /><br />My default position is to let everyone speak. Let's have a true marketplace of ideas, where the good ideas compete with the bad ideas, winner take all. This default position presupposes, of course, that the participants are actually sharing ideas (which trolls, by definition, do not).<br /><br />So, it pained me to reject my first comment over the weekend. For those betting in the informal pool about who would be censored first -- I had put my money on my acid tongued sister -- there were no winners. Instead, the distinction went to one "Michael Howard," who offered a particularly nasty message that he said he'd received from Guru. (Note to Michael: thanks for the message, we no longer require your services.)<br /><br />Since then, I've started getting more comfortable with the "reject" button. So, beware friend and foe alike: if I don't like your comment, I ain't posting it.<br /><br />With that in mind, here are some guidelines and tips for commenting:<br /><br />1. Click on the title of the blog post. When you click on the title of the blog post, the page will reload and all the associated comments will appear in an easy to read fashion at the end of the post.<br /><br />2. When you submit a comment, give me some time. The site forwards your comment to my email account. My choices are then limited: I can either publish your comment or I can reject it.<br /><br />3. I <span style="font-style:italic;">cannot</span> edit your comment. I would never do so anyway, but early on I wanted to correct some obvious spelling errors in a comment and learned that I couldn't do so; Blogger will not allow it. So, proofread before sending!<br /><br />4. Remember the "Coffee Shop Rule." This is my virtual coffee shop. I love it here. It's my baby and I'm very jealous of it. If you wouldn't say something to someone's face over coffee, then don't post it to my blog. (There <span style="font-style:italic;">is</span> a true forum for unmoderated ideas at the Yahoo! Sri Chinmoy Information site, which can be found <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/messages?o=1">here</a>. Beware the hot coffee there!)<br /><br />5. Use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticons">emoticons</a>. If you're being snarky or using irony, give some indication of it. Remember, blog commenting is the lowest form of human communication because such comments are so easily misunderstood. They permit none of the visual cues that we normally rely upon so heavily in face to face discussions.<br /><br />6. We don't have to agree! But consider which of the following comments is most likely to be posted.<br /><br />Exhibit A:<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><blockquote>I don't believe the allegations leveled at Guru because you're an asshole Yogaloy.</blockquote></span><div>OR</div><div><br /></div>Exhibit B:<br /><br /><i><blockquote>I don't believe the allegations leveled at Guru because I was in the Center for 30 years, went to the House every night, and I never saw anything to indicate Guru was having sex with his disciples.</blockquote></i>Now, while it's certainly true that I'm an asshole (I think I could find a friend who might agree -- you know who you are), that's not really a reason for disbelieving the allegations.<br /><br />Though I'd disagree with the latter argument, it's a good faith and respectable argument.<br /><br />7. Don't impugn others' motives. I make this mistake myself sometimes, but let's all work to avoid doing so. If someone says something that you don't agree with, don't assume they're liars, dupes, or anything other than someone wrestling with some very difficult information that may be central to their identity.<br /><br />8. Email me. For any reason, but especially if you've posted a comment and it doesn't show up. When you comment, I don't get your email address. So, I might have a good reason for holding your comment, but I won't be able to share it with you if you don't ask. Also, I may not have received your comment. I've noticed problems with the Blogger comment function and have lost some of my own, so communicate.<br /><br />And finally...<br /><br />9. Please don't criticize anyone by name, other than yourself or Guru. That's been a working principle of mine, which I've been pretty good at following. I ask that you do the same. This isn't about Ashrita or Ranjana or any other current disciples. I'm not saying you shouldn't use their names to make relevant points or to offer constructive suggestions, but other than that and your risking comment rejection.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e3ID0WIkVs">Lemon out</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The image above is </span><span>The Siren</span><span style="font-style:italic;"> by John William Waterhouse.</span>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-5839102088824322902009-11-15T14:08:00.000-08:002009-11-15T14:14:28.861-08:00Outing<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Sv46rDZMJMI/AAAAAAAAA3A/JNxw1vmEiZg/s1600-h/Oliver+W.+Sipple.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Sv46rDZMJMI/AAAAAAAAA3A/JNxw1vmEiZg/s400/Oliver+W.+Sipple.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403821114210919618" /></a>Have you heard of Oliver Sipple?<br /><br />Oliver Sipple was a United States Marine and a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War. On September 22, 1975, he joined a large group of people gathered outside of a hotel in San Francisco waiting for then-President Gerald R. Ford, who was inside the hotel, to emerge.<br /><br />As President Ford exited the hotel and headed for his limousine, Oliver Sipple noticed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Jane_Moore">the woman</a> standing next to him pull out a gun and point it towards the President. "The bitch has a gun," he screamed and instinctively grabbed the woman's arm as the shot rang out.<br /><br />The shot went wide, wounding a bystander, and Oliver Sipple was feted as a hero. (His Wikipedia entry is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Sipple">here</a>.)<br /><br />Oliver Sipple also happened to be gay.<br /><br />Thinking -- probably correctly -- that it would do the public some good to know that the man who had courageously saved the President's life was gay, pioneering gay activist (and later San Francisco Supervisor) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Milk">Harvey Milk</a> leaked Oliver Sipple's sexual orientation to the San Francisco Chronicle.<br /><br />Although he had been active within San Francisco's gay community, Oliver Sipple was not "out" to his parents. The resulting newspaper article and media frenzy changed that. Oliver Sipple had been "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outed">outed</a>."<br /><br />While Harvey Milk's decision to out Oliver Sipple may have made sense in the abstract strategic sense as a way to advance the gay rights movement, it exacted a heavy personal toll on Mr. Sipple. He was estranged from his parents for years afterward and was exposed to stress and pressures that without doubt contributed to his early death at age 47.<br /><br />As we -- the current and former disciples of Sri Chinmoy -- consider how to move forward in the coming weeks, months, and years, I hope we remember the story of Oliver Sipple. Ultimately, I'm not concerned with the Center as an organization.<br /><br />I'm concerned with individuals.<br /><br />I now know the names of more than a half dozen female disciples -- some of who move within the leadership of the Sri Chinmoy Center -- who were active participants in Guru's sex ring.<br /><br />I have no intention of outing these women.<br /><br />They've done nothing wrong. These women are victims, just like our other spiritual sisters <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/75">Phulela</a>, <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/328">Sevika</a>, <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/977">Rupavati</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/things-have-changed.html">Suchatula</a>, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/beauty-guest-post-by-sundari.html">Sundari</a>, and <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/11/bihagee.html">Bihagee</a>. They may not think of themselves as victims and may not want or need our help. But we should, nevertheless, stand ready to offer our collective hand of support should they ever ask.<br /><br />We can't make such an offer in good faith, however, if in our zeal to make some larger point trample upon the very women we claim to support. <br /><br />It's imperative that we create a safe and supportive environment. If we violate their privacy now -- if we out them preemptively -- we'll be creating anything but a safe and supportive environment for them. From our cloistered sisters' point of view, we'll be living up to the negative stereotype Guru long ago painted of former disciples as "hostile forces."<br /><br />It's been tempting for me over the last few weeks to think that I know better.<br /><br />Sitting on explosive information like the stories of Sundari and Bihagee -- revelation of which I thought would benefit the truth in the abstract and help others who are privately suffering similar pains -- was difficult and try as I might, I overstepped my bounds with Sundari and Bihagee a little, adding stress to their lives at a time when they least needed it.<br /><br />All has worked out now, with their brave public disclosures, but the process has given me pause.<br /><br />Let's remember, together, that the path of self-development is ultimately an individual one. We can't force our sister disciples to do more than they themselves are willing to do.<br /><br />If this blog is going to morph into something other than my own memoir -- as it has apparently already -- then it must be about facilitating the further development of each one of us through dialog, understanding and sympathy. <br /><br />It will do no good to expose the truth for truth's sake if in the process we destroy the well being of those we claim to support.<br /><br />In this regard, let's remember Oliver Sipple and always strive to temper our zeal for the truth with sympathy for our brothers and sisters still in the Center, many of who are struggling with these issues for the very first time.<br /><br />Let's not trample upon their opportunity to stand up for themselves in the name of some abstract principle.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-11364408528852865242009-11-14T13:30:00.000-08:002009-11-14T13:39:36.411-08:00Bihagee - A Guest Post<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Sv8jgn0xkyI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/qMnYQ4HbDLs/s1600-h/Bihagee+Smiling.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 393px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Sv8jgn0xkyI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/qMnYQ4HbDLs/s400/Bihagee+Smiling.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5404077121221006114" /></a>I do not wish to recount the details of what happened to me.<br /><br />It is the same story as Suchatula’s, who is one of my best friends and with whom I have been suffering through all this. How things might have been different had one of us just shared our story with the other?<br /><br />That is what I would like to write about here.<br /><br />For those who do not believe our stories, I want to explain my feelings. So much has been written already.<br /><br />It has taken me almost three years to leave the center. Even this I did not do on my own. Before I even managed to share my pain with my parents, Ashrita had informed them that their daughter was out of the center.<br /><br />Because of my complete faith in Guru, I did my best and accepted that, somehow, what he had asked me to do was okay. But it wasn’t easy. I had to fight so hard with myself. I had to convince myself that this thing Guru asked of me, which was so against my spiritual, religious, mental and human views, was okay.<br /><br />At the same time, I felt so bad, so guilty for doubting my spiritual master. I was punishing myself for not having enough surrender. No matter which way I looked at it, I was always somehow a culprit.<br /><br />In spite of all that, when I weighed the beautiful moments and experiences I had on the path, all that my spiritual life had given me, all of my sweet spiritual family members, against the pain I was feeling, the balance still tipped in favor of my disciple life.<br /><br />I couldn’t share my secret turmoil with my parents, who were on the path. I couldn’t tell my few best friends, and to be honest, I did not want to. How could I share something like this? How could I possibly betray my Guru, my spiritual master?<br /><br />Would my friends believe me?<br /><br />Maybe I was the only one.<br /><br />I wanted to walk into the sea and just have it over with. In the end, I decided I would have to quietly accept what Guru had asked me to do and somehow continue with my spiritual life, the life that had shaped me into a much better person, the life that had helped me find out so much about myself.<br /><br />Oh, but it was not so easy.<br /><br />Believe me, I did my best. I tried so hard that almost nobody thought I was troubled. But it was difficult. There I was, spending my time with my friends, working, going to the center, doing all a good disciple is expected to do and at the same time feeling bad for not doing it 100% the way I had done done it before 2007.<br /><br />I was having a hard time and blaming myself for having a hard time. The guilt and secrecy really pained me. I was hoping for an answer from Guru, who then suddenly passed away. That did not help things.<br /><br />Then one of my brother disciples in San Francisco, Viddyut, told me about <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/12937">Suchatula’s story</a>. As a good disciple, I had never read Suchatula’s story, despite the fact that we had been such good friends before she had left the path.<br /><br />My world completely felt apart.<br /><br />Guru had asked me to do the same thing. If in any way I had been defending what had happened to me, now that I realized that others were also involved, I simply couldn’t handle it anymore.<br /><br />All my fears were confirmed.<br /><br />It was so painful, standing in front of <a href="http://www.anandafuara.com/">Ananda Fuara</a>, trying to assimilate it all, while Viddyut patiently tried to help me recover from the shock. At the same time, I will admit it, I felt relieved that all was out in the open. I can finally share, talk about it and receive understanding, belief, and care.<br /><br />A load was off my heart.<br /><br />Oh, only if all was so easy. The realization of it all was excruciating. My head would not stop aching, thoughts too big and heavy for my little brain to handle were pushing their way in. I felt as if someone heavy was sitting on my chest and would not move.<br /><br />I couldn’t breathe, I had no desire to eat or sleep.<br /><br />The only person I told was Donka, one of my best friends. Even then it took a while for me to start explaining what had happened to me. So judge me if you want, but I had to tell someone, and better someone that was far from San Francisco.<br /><br />Next, I was finally able to call my other best friend, <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SpX3VGOEUxI/AAAAAAAAAzg/C6CTzVKtWWM/s1600-h/June+1993">Suchatula</a>, with whom I had not spoken to since she herself had left the center. We talked for hours and hours. If only one of us had shared with each other earlier…<br /><br />She came and picked me up. After a day together, she drove me to the airport.<br /><br />If only this was the end. It was not easy for me to be in the center struggling with this secret, but it sure is not easier now either.<br /><br />I had to call to my parents, knowing that they would not only suffer as disciples, but would naturally blame themselves for not protecting their child (as any good parents would). They are not to blame though. I have always made decisions for myself.<br /><br />I am now dead to my many friends in the center.<br /><br />They have not called me or contacted me in any way. I am suspected of being hostile and mentally ill. But believe me, I do not blame them, because I know how the center works. I know how they have to protect themselves, even if it means considering me dead, so that they can protect the precious, beautiful life we all had.<br /><br />My world has been shattered. Now, I have no desire of joining any other spiritual group. Everything I gave heart and soul for has been stained. But again, I do not regret my years as a disciple. If I had the chance to go back 10 years and make the choice over, I would take the same road.<br /><br />I only wish to share that it has not been easy, and it certainly is not easier now.<br /><br />Just telling this story to one person has been such a painful experience. I do not have the strength to tell other disciples, as I have been blamed of doing. I did not call New York and never tried to convince people to leave the center. I simply could not do that.<br /><br />I <span style="font-style:italic;">have</span> decided, though, that I cannot and should not continue blaming myself anymore.<br /><br />Thank you all for your support and love. I know that things will get better. Let everyone decide what’s best for themselves.<br /><br />Just do not accuse us of writing lies.<br /><br />I <span style="font-style:italic;">so</span> wish all of this was a lie.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-25481408009454637702009-11-10T11:25:00.000-08:002009-11-10T11:29:54.757-08:00Beauty -- A Guest Post by Sundari<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SvJ7tJ5ODeI/AAAAAAAAA24/vk_vcLEZ4Lg/s1600-h/Sundari.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400514918850891234" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 276px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SvJ7tJ5ODeI/AAAAAAAAA24/vk_vcLEZ4Lg/s400/Sundari.jpg" border="0" /></a> It’s been 37 years since I joined Guru’s Path in 1972.<br /><br />I never thought the day would come that I would be telling this story, but I guess it’s time. Before I start though, I just want to say that I have no regrets, only gratitude to my Guru for making me the person I am today, for sharing his precious life with me and for giving me an opportunity to serve him and my fellow disciples through his music.<br /><br />I also want to say that I came into the world only for the spiritual life, it’s all I ever wanted and all I will ever want.<br /><br />To all the wonderful disciples I have loved and laughed and cried with over these years, I love you and I always will. Please know you will be in my heart forever. I am sorry that the way we have been taught makes it impossible for us to continue walking along the same road together. It’s so sad we are forced to cast people out of our hearts and lives who have served the Supreme side-by-side with us for decades. But unfortunately that’s the way it has been set up. I did it too and it broke my heart every time.<br /><br />So now…<br /><br />On the day before my birthday this year I received an unexpected gift from <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/07/ashrita.html">Ashrita</a> – my complete and total freedom. After 37 years, I was told to leave the centre. <br /><br />The day began like any other day. As I had done each Friday morning, I got up at 5 am, put on a sari and headed to work at <a href="http://www.anandafuara.com/">Ananda Fuara</a> to do my job baking and then later waitressing. I had no idea what would be in store for me when I got to work.<br /><br />A long-time co-worker and friend put on a hysterical display that caused shock and fear in the other two workers who were with me that morning. She ended her tirade by marching to the door, flinging it open and saying, “Suchatula made allegations and she left, Bihagee made allegations and she left. What are you still doing here? We don’t need your stupid cakes and we don’t need YOU!!!”<br /><br />Just to set the record straight, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/things-have-changed.html">Suchatula</a> never made any allegations or even looked at the internet sites about Guru until many months after she left. And on that Friday morning, Bihagee was planning to go visit a dear friend in Seattle. She herself didn’t find out that she had left the path until she was informed by her parents that Ashrita had called Bulgaria and told her centre that she had become a hostile force.<br /><br />Now about me…<br /><br />First of all, let me say, I was not thrown out by Guru. I served him sincerely every day of my disciple life and would have continued probably to the end of my days. I truly believed as I sadly went home that morning that my brothers and sisters would see some sort of light, come to their senses and realize there had been a horrible mistake.<br /><br />I begged Yogaloy to give them some time, let the dust settle and please not mention my name in his blog. But I was sadly disappointed. It seems Ashrita called a few members of the Committee and my fate was decided.<br /><br />I won’t go into details, but my story, Guru’s reasons and even my reactions were very similar to <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/328">Sevika’s</a>. I had a sexual relationship with Guru.<br /><br />People ask, “Well, why didn’t you leave?” I say it wasn’t that simple. First of all, I loved Guru, adored him. He was the Supreme, God on earth, my Father, my Mother, my All.<br /><br />How could he ever be wrong about anything and who was I to question him? <br /><br />He offered to help me purify my vital life and I would be foolish not to accept. I just never expected that this purification would take over two decades.<br /><br />Like Sevika, I thought I was maybe the only one, or one of very few women involved in this activity. I eventually felt I was performing a service, maybe even helping Guru in some way to remain on earth. It seemed like a worthy sacrifice.<br /><br />I was told from the start I must never tell a soul or even write anything down and that if I told, nobody would believe me and they would think I was crazy. That should have made me nervous and it did. But by that time I had completely severed all connections with my family (at Guru’s command) and had no friends or support outside the centre.<br /><br />If I had left I would have had to move out of my home as well. I guess I just wasn’t brave enough or self-confident enough to make that decision.<br /><br />About my family: in the early 70’s my sister, my mother and I were all disciples. After five years my sister left, followed a year later by my mother. At that time I was told to send my family a telegram asking them never to call or write to me again.<br /><br />I was told that my mother’s leaving was a crime against her soul and that if I were to talk to them they would not realize the seriousness of their error and later in life they could go deaf or blind. To protect my parents from that fate I didn’t communicate with them for the next 20 years even though we had been a very close family.<br /><br />I later learned that my mother had cried every day and said she almost wished I had died because at least that way they could have had a funeral and some closure.<br /><br />Isn’t it interesting to know that these people, my family, actually loved me and prayed for my happiness every day of those 20 years, while respecting my wishes and never once contacting me?<br /><br />They embody the true essence of spirituality. <br /><br />Whereas my long-time co-worker and friend at the restaurant, who has worked beside me for decades, sung thousands of songs with me, and shared my whole disciple life, could in one day become so unimaginably hostile.<br /><br />It all boils down to defending the lie that is at the very heart of what remains of the centre without Guru. It’s the reason that my friend and those in her boat have embodied the very worst qualities of the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials. Did not our beloved Thomas Jefferson wage a campaign for religious freedom? How then does she have the right to try to corner each worker and ask them, “So are you with us or against us? Are you on the side of light or on the side of darkness?”<br /><br />I would like to ask my former brothers and sisters, who are so hasty to believe I am evil and a hostile force: please just use your heart and even your brain for a minute and tell me, what could I possibly gain by making up a lie about this after spending the last 37 years (all of my adult life) serving Guru?<br /><br />I have transcribed and prepared for publication thousands and thousands of songs. I have spent countless hours creating and repairing an extensive database of those songs. Guru often said, “No Sundari, no Sri Chinmoy’s music.” <br /><br />This has been my entire life’s work. Why would I throw it all away?<br /><br />I have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose. I have lost my job, my former friends, my good name, my spiritual family. I have gained nothing except my freedom to finally speak the truth.<br /><br />Even that would never have happened since I took my promise quite seriously, keeping a secret for 23 years that caused me tremendous inner conflict. But it was a sacrifice I was willing to make to protect my Guru and my brothers and sisters. <br /><br />The turning point finally came when a co-worker mentioned to me that he had read Suchatula’s story on Yogaloy’s blog (which of course I had never even heard of before, being an obedient disciple who doesn’t read things on the internet about Guru). Having lived with Suchatula for years and having watched her leave with absolutely no idea why, I was curious enough to look for her account and it didn’t take long to find it. <br /><br />At this point I must say that my sexual relations with Guru had ended a few years before, back during the time when so much information first appeared on the internet. I truly believed that he had seen the danger of this activity and ceased altogether. But reading Suchatula’s story made me realize that it had not only continued, but had changed into something far stranger than anything I had known.<br /><br />My experiences with Guru had been entirely private and just between the two of us, while Suchatula’s involved another woman. The strangeness of that and the devastating effect it had on such an exemplary disciple upset me deeply.<br /><br />It’s one thing to make a personal sacrifice and surrender, but to see your sister’s spiritual life completely destroyed is another thing altogether.<br /><br />When asked by Viddyut if I believed her story, I said yes I did. It just had the ring of truth. And then, when he found out from Bihagee that she had suffered the same fate while in Bulgaria 3 years ago, it was all just too painful to bear.<br /><br />So this is my crime.<br /><br />I sympathizing with two women whose spiritual lives will never be the same. I don’t pretend to be all-knowing and of course we can never judge the actions of an Avatar. It is said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Guru’s Life-Tree produced many wonderful fruits.<br /><br />It also produced a few not-so-wonderful ones. I guess it is up to us to make our own decisions about our lives based on what feels right in our hearts and our souls. That’s the understanding I’ve come to anyway.<br /><br />It’s a whole new world. <br /><br />May the disciples who are left to carry on Guru’s message somehow find the strength and the wisdom to listen to their hearts, overcome their fears and realize that Guru does not need us to defend him.<br /><br />He needs us to embody true spirituality as a testament to the Light he gave us. One way leads to a slow and painful death, the other to life.<br /><br />We must choose.<br /><br />With love,<br />SundariY.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com52tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-46759882617645023052009-11-06T23:50:00.000-08:002014-08-12T16:26:50.376-07:00Organizational Cancer<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/UJ4HUD-wErc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0' /></div><br />"<i>There's nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that</i>."<br />~ Al Pacino as Lt. Col. Frank Slade in <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>The Scent of a Woman</i></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i><br /></i></span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">At some point in my early disciple life, I read or heard Guru say that after his death, the Center as an organization would implode. The implosion began this morning in San Francisco.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">In truth, though, it's more like a cancer than an implosion. Like pancreatic or liver cancer -- which exhibit few symptoms until it's too late to do anything about -- the poison of Guru's exploitation of his female disciples metastasized seemingly in secret.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Sure, there were warning signs. <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/328">Sevika</a>, <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/977">Rupavati</a>, and <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/75">Phulela</a> all spoke publicly and courageously. Guru was alive then, however, and they were easily dismissed. Then <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/gurus-death.html">Guru died</a>. Since then -- with cancerous cells lodged in every vital center of the Center organization -- it's just been a matter of time.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">If there was any doubt about the diagnosis, it was confirmed with the <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/08/things-have-changed.html">coming out of Suchatula</a>. Sevika's, Rupavati's, and Phulela's stories weren't evidence of just some isolated, benign ailment. Instead, their stories were symptomatic of a malignant disease that Guru sowed within his organization, which now reaches all the way into the very leadership circle of the Center.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">It will be with little wonder that we look back at this time, years from now, and realize that this was when the patient put the first step in the grave.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Not surprisingly, I guess, it started in San Francisco. That's where Suchatula spent more than 20 years as a disciple working at the disciple-owned vegetarian restaurant <a href="http://www.anandafuara.com/">Ananda Fuara</a>, alongside some of the very old-guard disciples, like Nirvik, Sundari, Venu, and Dharana, who once watched over me as a youngster in the Center. The San Francisco disciples knew Suchatula.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">They couldn't easily dismiss her.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Now, as it turns out, at least two other San Francisco disciples have reported similar stories (one admitting to sex with Guru, the other to being pressured into sex with another female disciple). Their reward for making the ultimate surrender to Guru?</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">It appears these two women are gone from the Center (one apparently kicked out, the other fleeing the inevitable). The disgraceful treatment meted out to them was also visited on a prominent younger San Francisco male disciple named Viddyut.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">"If you're not 100% for Guru," they were told, "then you're out!"</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The chutzpah! <i>These women -- and the dozens like them -- were the only disciples "100% for Guru!" </i>They gave <span style="font-style: italic;">body</span>, mind, and soul to him. And Viddyut's crime? He believed his sister-disciple's stories -- because they're true -- and he showed these women support.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">This is the beginning of the end for the Center as even an arguably legitimate enterprise. If an organization founded upon the principles of yoga isn't about seeking the truth no matter where it lies, then it might as well be burned to the ground. The sheer incompetence of the Center's board of directors evidenced by this morning's events is nothing short of stunning.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Is there not <span style="font-style: italic;">one</span> fucking person in the whole of this cancer-ridden organization that can make a stand against his or her own goddamned personal interest?</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Not one?</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">As our fictional hero Lt. Col. Frank Slade might say in the video above, the "leaders" of the Center are "killing the very spirit this institution proclaims to instill." Does nobody in the organization care enough to speak out?</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">It's ironic, I suppose, that the leader of the San Francisco Center -- <a href="http://www.kaiserrohnertpark.org/garimahoffmann">Garima</a> -- is a doctor and might know a thing or two about the importance of attacking malignancy. I hope she'll set an example for others to follow. I don't remember first meeting Garima, but it must have been during those early heady days <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/02/planning.html">when I would sneak out</a> of my dad's house as a 16 year old to go to meditations up at the old San Francisco Center on 16th Avenue and Taraval Street in the Sunset District.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Back then, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-leader.html">Sevika</a> was the Center leader there and Garima kept a very low profile. By the time I had ensconced myself as a local disciple in New York, Sevika was on her way out. It was Garima, then, who took over the duties of Center leader. It was sometime later that my only real memory of Garima was established.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Very late one night -- actually, it was probably very early one morning -- after a long drive back from a concert in New Jersey, Vinaya and I arrived at Guru's house to find the place dark. Typically, when concerts were held in Manhattan, for example, Vinaya and I could pack up Guru's musical instruments afterward and drive back to Queens in time to put all the instruments away and then hang out at Guru's house with the other regulars and relax. T</span>hen, sometime around midnight, Guru would tell everyone to go home for the night.<br /><br />On this particular night, though, we got back very late because of the long, out-of-state drive. The house was dark. But that wasn't really a problem for us. We had keys and the combination to the cypher-locked doors. That night, Vinaya said that he'd unload most of the instruments into Guru's garage, which was then used for storage, while I should take Guru's favorite instruments -- the flute, cello, harmonium, and esraj -- into the house and put them in their usual spots in the living room.<br /><br />So, I unlocked the door, carefully picked up the esraj and its bow, and walked into the house through the side door. I went up a short flight of stairs, turned right, and made my way into the darkened -- but not completely dark -- living room. To my surprise, Guru was sitting in his usual oversized recliner. Garima was sitting on the floor in front of him massaging his feet.<br /><br />Now, back in the day, I kept pretty close attention to who was permitted to touch Guru. There were just a handful of disciples given that honor. None of them were girls.<br /><br />I was surprised to see Garima at Guru's feet. She looked a little surprised to see me, too. But she quickly focused back on Guru and Guru didn't seem worried by my presence as I walked in and out a few more times bringing in the rest of the instruments.<br /><br />When Vinaya and I were done, we left. As I walked home that early morning, I reflected on what I'd seen and actually thought it was pretty cool that Garima was allowed to massage Guru. I figured that as a doctor, she must have had the ability to think about the body in a very clinical -- and unsexual -- way.<br /><br />I had -- and have -- no problem with what I saw that night. I don't think it was sexual. In hindsight, though, it has helped me understand how Guru hid things from even those disciples who seemingly spent every waking hour with him.<br /><br />Whether she likes it or not, it is perhaps fitting that Garima is the Center's last hope. She's a doctor, after all, and is strong enough, smart enough, and has the personal integrity not to buckle under the extreme pressure she must be under.<br /><br />That's my hope anyway. She knows the truth. Without courage, however, without the willingness to lose everything you once held dear, the truth means nothing.<br /><br />(Seriously, if you haven't watched the video above, take at least 5 or 6 minutes and watch the main speech. Here's a&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scent_of_a_Woman#Plot_summary">quick plot summary</a> if you haven't seen the movie before.)<br /><br /><i><i>Made some significant edits from the original. First, and foremost, I got a little too far in front of the story for those involved and included a little too much personal detail. For that I'm sorry, and I've removed it. Second, the original post incorrectly stated that both these women had sex with Guru, when apparently just one did (the other was pressured by Guru to have sex with another female disciple). Finally, the original post stated both girls were kicked out of the Center. Apparently, one fled the Center preemptively, while the other may want to remain. I'm sorry for the errors. (November 7, 2009.)</i></i></div></div>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-84721122950823200362009-11-02T20:05:00.000-08:002009-11-02T20:13:45.633-08:00Unconditional Acceptance<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Su-h08rfRpI/AAAAAAAAA2w/IOW_Fdv1wf4/s1600-h/Kali_Devi.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 304px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Su-h08rfRpI/AAAAAAAAA2w/IOW_Fdv1wf4/s400/Kali_Devi.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399712409254315666" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">"Even though my guru frequents a grog shop,</span><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">still to me he is the embodiment of eternal bliss."</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">~ Sri Ramakrishna</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">A long time ago, an old disciple friend of mine was telling me about a family crisis. Apparently, his younger sister, who was still in high school, was dating an African-American classmate. They were preparing to go to the prom or something.<br /><br />The problem? Their mom -- an old fashioned, practicing Catholic -- didn't want her daughter dating a black guy. So, both sides of the family appealed to my friend, the eldest son, for help.<br /><br />My friend, of course, sided with his little sister and tried to talk sense to their mom. He pleaded with her to be fair. He used logic. Finally, he appealed to his mom's religious sensibilities. What would Jesus do, he asked. Her response was classic:<br /><br />"If Jesus Christ himself came down off the cross and told me to accept it," she said, "I still would not accept it."<br /><br />The absurdity of this situation aside, there's definitely something to be said for sticking to one's guns and this story reminds me of the literally mindless devotion we all sometimes have towards a principle, even when such rigidity begins to eviscerate the very principle we claim to be following.<br /><br />In our case, the principle is truth seeking.<br /><br />When it comes down to it, the essence of the guruvada -- the way of the guru -- is complete and utter surrender to one's guru without conditions. This is a lesson my friend's mom, hypothetically anyway, hadn't learned yet. As surrendered to Jesus as she may have been in other areas of her life, that surrender stopped when it came to whom her daughter dated.<br /><br />From a yogic point of view, that's no surrender at all.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Take a moment and read the little aphorism above that <a href="http://syed21.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/ramakrishna_at_studio.jpg">Thakur</a> was so fond of repeating to his disciples more than a hundred years ago. Think about what that means. That's unconditional acceptance, unconditional love for one's guru, no matter how he or she behaves.<br /><br />It doesn't mean you, the disciple, must condone the guru's behavior. It doesn't mean you must play along, it just means you love your guru despite his or her apparent flaws. Perhaps it means loving from afar, the way one does for a wayward family member or an adult child who has gone astray.<br /><br />You love and support, though perhaps not enable.<br /><br />Whether accepted or not, the implication of this point of view is easily understood to those of us who believe the various allegations of wrongdoing that have been made against our own Guru. It suggests forgiveness -- that while we race to embrace and support our sister disciples who have been exploited by Guru, we should nevertheless remember what Guru once represented to us at a time in our lives when we needed something to believe in.<br /><br />As I've struggled to explain in my last series of posts, my view -- which I acknowledge is one apparently not held by many others -- is that Guru was both extremely exalted (in his austere, reserved, passive consciousness) and emotionally immature (in his frenetic, vital, active consciousness).<br /><br />When he meditated he went somewhere few others ever have. But when it came to expressing human feelings and emotions, Guru apparently never developed much beyond that young orphan brought up in a cold, repressive ashram. He took what he wanted -- what he needed -- from those surrendered to him.<br /><br />Though my Guru deceived me and took sexual advantage of many of his spiritual daughters, "still to me he is the embodiment of eternal bliss."<br /><br />I love him, flaws and all.<br /><br />I challenge my friends -- most of whom (but not all) are inside the Center -- and who are not even willing to <span style="font-style:italic;">consider</span> the mounting allegations of sexual misconduct to ask themselves whether their love for Guru is unconditional.<br /><br />Because it seems to me that if you're too afraid to even <span style="font-style:italic;">consider</span> these allegations it can only be because -- at root --your acceptance of Guru is conditional. You can only accept him as you <span style="font-style:italic;">think</span> he is, but not necessarily as he actually was.<br /><br />Not everyone in the Center has their head in the sand though. There are some who <span style="font-style:italic;">know</span> the truth, and others unafraid to search for it.<br /><br />The future of the Center rests with them.<br /><br />"... at the length truth will out."<br /><br /><i>That's the goddess Kali above, from an etching done in 1770. Pretty cool. I </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali"><i>found it here</i></a><i>.</i></div></div></div>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-63903507717199196662009-10-27T21:22:00.000-07:002009-10-27T22:07:12.411-07:00Soliciting Topics<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SufHVsLzi9I/AAAAAAAAA2o/S9UZs-9uaQw/s1600-h/AOY+Worldwide.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 244px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SufHVsLzi9I/AAAAAAAAA2o/S9UZs-9uaQw/s400/AOY+Worldwide.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397501853878684626" /></a><br />Like most bloggers, I utilize a service to let me know how much traffic my blog generates.<br /><br />The service I use -- <a href="www.statcounter.com">Statcounter.com</a> -- is great and free, but it doesn't tell me personal information about you, per se. It does tell me -- based on your <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ip_address">IP address</a> -- where in the world you (or your computer anyway) resides. And that's how the map above was produced.<br /><br />This type of map is nothing new to most of us who surf the net regularly, but it's still pretty cool to look at. Since most of my readers are current and former disciples (I suspect), the worldwide scope of my readership says more about the scope of Guru's reach when he was alive than it does about my popularity.<br /><br />In any event, it's inspired me to reach out to you all to solicit ideas about where the blog goes from here. What topic or topics do you think still need to be addressed? <br /><br />At the moment, the only remaining topic(s) I'm inspired to write about concern the role of women in the modern yoga movement and my hopes for my sister disciples in the future.<br /><br />I also probably won't be able to constrain myself from giving the Center, as an organization, some more unsolicited advice and ideas about how it might address the huge challenges it now faces. Organizations face these challenges -- i.e., allegations of wrongdoing -- all the time and there are ways to do it.<br /><br />But it takes leadership. So, perhaps I can give those who have the Center's best interests at heart some ideas about how to step up.<br /><br />I know there must be some other topics of interest to those of my loyal readers (you <span style="font-style:italic;">both</span> know who you are!). So, please use the comment function below or email me privately and let me know what ideas <span style="font-style:italic;">you</span> have and what topics you'd like me to write about.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-1649246635548048602009-10-25T15:10:00.000-07:002009-10-25T15:12:49.936-07:00Crying Wolf?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SuNHxZG0IWI/AAAAAAAAA2g/MREOISGZvNc/s1600-h/Krishna+and+the+Gopiswith.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 361px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SuNHxZG0IWI/AAAAAAAAA2g/MREOISGZvNc/s400/Krishna+and+the+Gopiswith.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396235692398616930" /></a><br />It's a horrible truth to face.<br /><br />The idea that all that time I was earnestly leading a celibate life, Guru himself was having sex with his female disciples. That when my innocent, sibling-like <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/saint.html">relationship with Jayanti</a> was brought to his attention, Guru felt compelled to warn <span style="font-style:italic;">me</span> about inappropriate conduct, while he himself was sleeping with his own spiritual daughters.<br /><br />In hindsight, it's not the sex that bothers me. It's the deceit. The sheer scale of the deceit is what leaves me reeling even now. With every new revelation -- and there <span style="font-style:italic;">are</span> more to come -- the scope of Guru's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopi">gopi</a> network becomes more apparent.<br /><br />Yet, I owe everything to Guru.<br /><br />Whatever else might be said about Guru's deception and misconduct, it didn't affect his ability to <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/awakening.html">prime my spiritual life</a>, to effect <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/gates-open.html">my occult transformation</a>, or on a more mundane level to give me some much needed positive reinforcement.<br /><br />So, that's the conundrum I've been wrestling with. How to square the evidence?<br /><br />Since <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/328">Sevika's story</a> first broke, there have been a few schools of thought amongst my friends both inside and outside the Center. On one end of the spectrum, there are those (including some prominent former disciples) who reject the allegations of sexual misconduct outright. Impossible, they say.<br /><br />On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who say Guru was a fraud. He had no redeeming qualities, they say, and any positive developments his disciples report were the result of either their own self-deception or their own self-disciplined life. In either event, Guru deserves no credit.<br /><br />Then there are those scattered in the middle somewhere. Some folks sympathetic to Guru, for example, accept the truth of the allegations and shrug them off. Among this small group is one of my best friends, who said "they were all adults" -- no harm, no foul. Others, less sympathetic to Guru, acknowledge he had "powers" of some unspecified kind, but was a fraud nonetheless. A false or fallen master, they say.<br /><br />I've got close friends in each of these groups, but none of these takes on Guru satisfies me.<br /><br />Instead, I believe both -- that Guru had access to an exalted spiritual consciousness <span style="font-style:italic;">and</span> engaged in sexual misconduct with his female disciples. And that's what I've been trying to explain over the last so many posts (starting <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/metaphysical-assumptions.html">here</a>).<br /><br />There is one aspect of this equation, however, that I haven't yet addressed in any depth-- the credibility of women who have made these troubling accusations against Guru. I began the <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/01/truth.html">discussion here</a>, but as a recent commenter pointed out, I haven't really considered the possibility that Sevika, <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/977">Rupavati</a>, <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/75">Phulela</a> and <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/12937">Suchatula</a> might all be lying about their experiences with Guru.<br /><br />Do women make false allegations of sexual misconduct?<br /><br />Yes. But not very often, and when they do there's usually a pretty clear motive for it. Our spiritual sisters in this case don't fit the mold.<br /><br />First, let's talk numbers. The only reliable empirical data on false allegations comes from rape cases, which while not exactly on point here -- nobody has alleged Guru committed rape -- the data still gives us a baseline understanding. Though it makes for big headlines in the news (see the recent <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/16/hofstra.rape/index.html">Hofstra University case</a> or the infamous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Duke_University_lacrosse_case">Duke University lacrosse case</a>), women <span style="font-style:italic;">do not</span> make false rape allegations very often.<br /><br />The number is between 8-10%. (Here's a <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2231012/">good article from Slate</a> on the topic.) In other words, 90% of the time, women who report rape are telling the truth.<br /><br />There are reasons the number of false rape allegations are relatively low, including criminal prohibitions against making false police reports, moral prohibitions against destroying an innocent person's life by making such a false allegation, and a general unwillingness by most people to endure the invasive scrutiny into one's private behavior that making such a charge entails. As a matter of fact, most rapes (<a href="http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates">as many as 60%</a>) are never reported.<br /><br />I can't think of any good reason why this same trend wouldn't apply to false public allegations of sexual misconduct. While there are no criminal prohibitions against such false claims, there are civil prohibitions. Sevika's allegations, for example, certainly tarnished Guru's reputation. If false, she risked exposure to a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation">defamation lawsuit</a>, which is the civil remedy you pursue to get your reputation back.<br /><br />Yet, Guru never pursued such a suit. Now, as a trial lawyer, I can tell you that just because you <span style="font-style:italic;">can</span> sue doesn't mean that you should. In these types of cases, for example, filing a lawsuit can exacerbate the very problem you're trying to avoid by bringing widespread attention to allegations that otherwise would get little attention on the Yahoo! message board.<br /><br />In Guru's case, however, the claims made by Sevika and the others were already attracting press attention by the New York Post and other press outlets. There didn't seem to be much downside -- on the publicity front anyway -- to suing Sevika and the others for their false allegations. Unless, of course, the allegations were true.<br /><br />Likewise, it seems the same moral prohibitions against making such false allegations in a rape case would also apply in this case. I can't imagine my spiritual sisters any <span style="font-style:italic;">more</span> inclined to lie than the general public. Nor do I think they'd be any more willing to expose their lives to public scrutiny, knowing as I do firsthand the reticence with which one confronts the wider world upon leaving the Center.<br /><br />On the sheer numbers alone, it seems unlikely that our sisters are making these stories up. Numbers aside, what would motivate these four women to make such allegations?<br /><br />In all of the other circumstances that I can think of where people make false allegations of sexual misconduct, there's almost always a discernible ulterior motive. In rape cases -- like the Hofstra and Duke cases alluded to above -- the false allegation of rape is used to mask the putative victim's embarrassment at having had consensual sex (with either some undesirable person or with someone other than one's spouse).<br /><br />In sexual harassment cases, false allegations may be made to gain a financial advantage in a civil suit. In family law cases, false allegations of child abuse are sometimes made by one parent trying to win sole custody of the children. In the political arena, false allegations may be made for both financial and partisan advantage.<br /><br />I detect no such ulterior motives in any of the allegations made by Sevika, Rupavati, Phulela or Suchatula.<br /><br />It has been suggested that perhaps they're simply disgruntled. That in order to mask their own respective failures in the Center, these women simply made up these allegations of sexual misconduct against Guru in some crazy-assed attempt to get attention.<br /><br />Whatever appeal such a theory has -- and I don't think it has much based upon what we've discussed above -- it begins to break down with each successive revelation. One crazy woman, I could believe.<br /><br />But four?<br /><br />Last week, seeking some confirmation that I'm thinking clearly on these issues, I checked in with a prominent female disciple still active in the Center. I asked her if <span style="font-style:italic;">she</span> believed Suchatula's story. She confirmed that she did.<br /><br />When I asked her why she believed Suchatula's story, this disciple (who asked for anonymity) told me that she had had sex with Guru for more than a decade.<br /><br />These women are telling the truth.<br /><br />As shocking as it is to contemplate, Guru was not only having sex with his female disciples, but also encouraging some of his female disciples to have sex with each other. This makes me both extremely sad for my sister disciples so taken advantage of and extremely disappointed in Guru's behavior.<br /><br />This is a very tough pill for my friends in the Center (and even some outside the Center) to swallow. I know that first hand, because it took me a long time to fully accept it as well.<br /><br />To start, though, you must have not just the willingness but the desire to know the truth.<br /><br />Isn't that the very definition of the word "seeker?" <br /><br /><i>That's Krishna and the Gopis, above, in a picture from the Smithsonian </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopi"><i>found here</i></a><i>.</i>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-89961819574222338012009-10-18T20:04:00.000-07:002009-10-18T20:06:34.128-07:00Neuroanatomy & Yoga<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/StvXqy9r4tI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/Ip03UK1fQGQ/s1600-h/Brain+Image+by+HowStuffWorks.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/StvXqy9r4tI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/Ip03UK1fQGQ/s400/Brain+Image+by+HowStuffWorks.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394142108941279954" /></a><br />It's all in your head.<br /><br />That's the idea <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/into-balance.html">I've been toying</a> with for a while anyway -- that there's a neurological component to yoga, which thus far has not gotten the attention I think it deserves. I suspect that this is because so much of our <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/07/lexicon.html">metaphysical lexicon</a> -- the vocabulary of yoga -- is rooted in the past.<br /><br />Adopting a scientific approach to understanding our yogic development might promise more precision. For example, if I told a room full of new agers that I'd developed some conscious control over my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muladhara">muladhara chakra</a>, I suspect we'd have a room full of people all with very different takes on what I'd meant by that statement.<br /><br />The term is old and imprecise and not really susceptible to examination through evidence.<br /><br />But if I told a room full of people that I'd developed some conscious control over my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala">amygdelae</a>, they'd have a fairly uniform understanding of what I'd meant (or they would after first checking its definition on Wikipedia!).<br /><br />So, I think integrating scientific advances into our practice of yoga can only benefit us. It might also give us further insight into the <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/paradox.html">paradox</a> we've been discussing. In other words, perhaps there's a neurological explanation for how a person could be capable of both an exalted meditative state and sexual misconduct.<br /><br />Before we go there, though, let's think about this idea more generally.<br /><br />Some time ago, my practice included concentrating on the various <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra">chakras</a> or subtle nerve centers, which are said to tie one's physical organism to the larger universal forces at play in the world. One day, while I was thus concentrating, it occurred to me that while I was concentrating on my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anahata">heart chakra</a>, the action was taking place in my brain.<br /><br />To understand my point, consider the phenomena of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb">phantom limbs</a>.<br /><br />Some small percentage of people who have a limb amputated report still feeling the presence of their lost limb. The feeling is real, but obviously the existence of the limb is not. What's going on?<br /><br />As it turns out, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_motor_cortex">primary motor cortex</a> -- that part of the human brain responsible for processing sensory and motor information -- maintains a neurological map of the individual's body. Though bizarre looking, neuroscientists have produced a visual representation of this mental map, which is called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_homunculus">cortical homunculus</a> or the "little man" inside the brain.<br /><br />So, while a person might lose her hand in an accident, the neural map within her primary motor cortex might remain out of sync or not updated. Thus, to her the mental image of her hand, along with all its associated feelings, still exists in a very real way. As I began to hear about some groundbreaking work being done by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilayanur_S._Ramachandran">neurologist V. S. Ramachandran</a> to ease "phantom pains" being experienced by amputees, it occurred to me that neurology might have some application to yoga as well.<br /><br />What if -- even though we experience them in designated areas of the body -- the chakras are actually seated in the brain?<br /><br />Through the use of magnetic resonance imaging technology, neuroscientists are beginning to map areas in the brain that appear to be associated with our entire subjective life. The nervous systems and sex drive, for example, appear to be strongly associated with the aforementioned <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala">amygdalae</a>, small areas within the medial temporal lobes of the brain, which operate below the conscious radar most of the time.<br /><br />Our more conscious emotions appear to be processed by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventromedial_prefrontal_cortex">ventral prefrontal cortex</a>. One <a href="http://www.livescience.com/health/070629_naming_emotions.html">study suggests</a> that those people who engage in consciously accepting and labeling negative emotions tend to gain some control over the autonomously acting amygdalae. Sounds like neurological support for <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/tantra.html">tantra</a>.<br /><br />Communication and creativity may be centered in the medial <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medial_prefrontal_cortex">prefrontal cortex</a>. See <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23562208/">this article</a> about the use of MRI scans on jazz musicians while they improvise.<br /><br />Insight seems to be associated with the right hemisphere anterior <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_temporal_gyrus">superior temporal gyrus</a>, as discussed in <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article822534.ece">this article</a>.<br /><br />The "presence of God" -- at least for the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/aug/30/medicalresearch.neuroscience">nuns in one study</a> -- activated some 12 areas of the brain, quite apart from the areas of the brain activated when experiencing more worldly emotions.<br /><br />Now, obviously, I'm no scientist and I've grossly oversimplified an extremely complex and new field of scientific study and discovery. (Here's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/opinion/13brooks.html">a link</a> to a nice overview of this emerging field by David Brooks.) Nevertheless, I can't help thinking that there is some real value to modern yogis in thinking about these types of studies and their findings.<br /><br />I suspect that, like the amputee experiencing the phantom limb phenomena, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/at-gates-of-trance.html">my subjective mystical experiences</a> are rooted in my brain. When I feel a psychic flame reaching out from the center of my chest, the action itself is taking place inside my own head -- just as the images I see, the scents I smell, and the things I taste are all experienced in differing areas of the brain.<br /><br />That said, I'm not proposing that we <span style="font-style:italic;">are</span> our brains. As I've <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/metaphysical-assumptions.html">previously posted</a>, I assume that consciousness precedes matter. But if the process of yoga is a physical one, then it seems to me there's a place for a more modern view of the seat of our consciousness -- our brains.<br /><br />I think this idea also provides us with another way to think about Guru's paradoxical nature.<br /><br />Whether it's actually true in Guru's case or not, it's at least conceivable -- neurologically anyway -- that a person could have ready access to "high" spiritual experiences and yet engage in unethical behavior. Particularly, if such traits are governed by different and distinct areas of the brain.<br /><br />If, for example, a person's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitofrontal_cortex#Consequences_of_damage_to_the_OFC">orbitofrontal cortex is compromised</a> or undeveloped, then that person will likely exhibit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinhibited">disinhibition</a> or a disregard for social conventions which can manifest in many ways.<br /><br />Likewise, with damage to (or lack of development of) the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, one's ability to distinguish between right and wrong -- to think in moral terms -- may be compromised (<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117884235401499300-search.html?KEYWORDS=hauser&amp;COLLECTION=wsjie/6month">here's an article</a> from the Wall Street Journal on the subject).<br /><br />That wouldn't mean, however, that such a person couldn't experience spiritual ecstasy in a completely different and distinct area of the brain.<br /><br />Would it?<br /><br />To my mind, everything must be learned. We're not born with a knowledge about human relations and how to maturely navigate our sexual desires and romantic feelings. Instead, they're skills that we must learn -- either from others or from our own trials and errors -- and practice.<br /><br />Just like meditation.<br /><br />It's entirely conceivable to me that Guru -- born as he was in the first half of the 20th Century, in India, orphaned, and raised in the strict confines of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (the very model of our own Sri Chinmoy Center) -- never learned about sex, never learned how accept his natural desires, and never learned how to communicate his emotions in a healthy way.<br /><br />That's why, I expect, he exploited the trust of some of his female disciples.<br /><br />I'm not convinced, however, that his exalted meditations weren't just that: exalted.<br /><br /><i>Credit for the photo above goes </i><a href="http://health.howstuffworks.com/migraine.htm"><i>here</i></a><i>. I just stumbled upon this </i><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2165004/pagenum/all/#p2"><i>interesting two-year old article</i></a><i> on Slate, which suggest how one might wire the brain for spiritual ecstasy.</i>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-47585141799433555942009-10-13T23:47:00.000-07:002009-10-13T23:58:59.776-07:00Realization<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Ss1pnV2_YpI/AAAAAAAAA1g/jutjS7mhZSQ/s1600-h/Aurobindo+Ghose.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Ss1pnV2_YpI/AAAAAAAAA1g/jutjS7mhZSQ/s400/Aurobindo+Ghose.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390080453635957394" /></a>Well, better grab yourself a cup of coffee -- I'm partial to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_Americano">Americano</a> these days -- because we're about to engage in some theoretical reasoning. (I'm sorry, chai or herbal tea won't do -- you're gonna need the hard stuff.)<br /><br />What <span style="font-style:italic;">is</span> realization?<br /><br />Call it what you will -- God realization, self realization, liberation, moksha, enlightenment, Brahma jnana -- without an answer to this question, we cannot know whether the conventional wisdom expressed by so many is correct. And what is that conventional wisdom?<br /><br />The conventional wisdom is that realization and sexual misconduct cannot go together. That they are mutually exclusive personal attributes. That a realized person -- by definition -- cannot engage in immoral behavior. That an unethical person -- by definition -- cannot be realized. That's the conventional wisdom.<br /><br />The conventional wisdom makes intuitive sense and is hard to argue with, but is it right?<br /><br />If the state of realization is synonymous with moral rectitude, then I think we're on safe ground assuming that Guru was not realized (since we've <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/ethical-case.html">already concluded</a> that Guru's treatment of some of his female disciples was unethical). From that, of course, it would follow that my <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/paradox.html">paradox conjecture</a> -- that Guru could be both realized and act unethically -- is flat wrong.<br /><br />If, however, the state of realization <span style="font-style:italic;">is not</span> synonymous with moral behavior, then -- as a matter of logic anyway -- the paradox conjecture might have some merit.<br /><br />Our inquiry, though, must begin by defining the term "realization." Here's the story of how I began to conceptualize the term and how my thinking about it has evolved over time.<br /><br />I first began to think about the concept of self-realization when I was 12 years old, reading Paramahansa Yogananda's masterpiece, <i><a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2007/12/book.html">Autobiography of a Yogi</a></i>. Swamiji's preferred term, it seemed, was "cosmic consciousness" and it took me in.<br /><br />"Cosmic consciousness" has some panache. In contrast to the synonymous terms of "God-realization" and "self-realization" -- which both sound like fixed destinations -- cosmic consciousness sounds boundless and adaptable, liquid perhaps. In practice, based upon the examples Swamiji gave in his book, cosmic consciousness appeared to manifest itself in individuals as both free access to a perception of the Divine coupled with some facility within the individual for magical powers.<br /><br />As an insecure 12 year old grappling with identity issues, the power of control over both oneself and the natural world seemingly promised by the cosmic consciousness described by Yogananda was extremely seductive. (You can read about some of my early "issues" <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/01/shame-as-driving-force.html">here</a> and more generally about how famed psychologist Erik Erikson explains the stage of development I was going through at the time <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson's_stages_of_psychosocial_development#Adolescence:_Identity_vs._Role_Confusion_.2813_to_19_years.29">here</a>.)<br /><br />Couple that seductive attraction with the seminal pop culture event of that same year (1977) -- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_IV:_A_New_Hope">Star Wars</a> -- and the basic parameters of my cosmological worldview had been forged. The idea of an undivided and all pervasive intelligent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_(Star_Wars)">Force</a> -- free from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism">anthropomorphism</a> -- with which I could obtain oneness (or "realize" my existing oneness) with was an idea that seemed natural, if not obvious, to me at the time.<br /><br />As we'll discuss, over time my concept of the aim of yoga -- realization -- evolved from this first simple understanding of my pre-teen years. One thing that stuck with me, however, was the discovery of my own ideal self-image. Whether it was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Guinness">Sir Alec Guinness</a> as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obi_Wan">Obi-Wan Kenobi</a> in the brown cloak of the Jedi or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Yukteswar_Giri">Sri Yukteswar</a> in the gerua robe of the swami, both presented the same image to my young, wide-open eyes -- that of the wise, self-confident loner.<br /><br />That image, that ideal -- of the wise, self-confident loner -- never left me.<br /><br />As I approached my 16th birthday, I added to my working concept of what realization entailed. It included not just the image of the wise and quietly powerful loner (ala the fictional Ben Kenobi) but it also required a facility with trance.<br /><br />To my mind, trance -- or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samadhi">samadhi</a> -- became <span style="font-style:italic;">the</span> hallmark of my understanding of realization. Contrary to my initial impression, though, not all masters -- I was learning -- presented the image of the wise, empowered loner. But they all, it seemed, had ready, conscious access to the Beyond.<br /><br />As I became a disciple, more nuance was added. There were grades of trance, grades of exaltation I learned. While the experience of a trance of some kind during meditation might be personally transformative, it might not necessarily guarantee <span style="font-style:italic;">permanent</span> access to such experiences.<br /><br />So, realization wasn't just the experience of trance. Instead, it entailed some sense of permanence, some sense of free and easy access to the cosmic consciousness. Guru made this point more or less explicit.<br /><br />In an uncomplicated (and seemingly contradictory) way, Guru introduced some more nuance into my developing sense of what realization was. In a general sense, Guru used simple metaphor, speaking of the "Golden Shore." The Center was a boat, Guru its captain, and the disciples its passengers. As long as we stayed in the boat -- i.e., never left the Center -- we would, one day, arrive at the Golden Shore of realization.<br /><br />I didn't find such simple metaphors of practical use, but in some of his early talks and writings, Guru spoke of concepts like liberation, partial realization, full realization, partial avatars, and full avatars.<br /><br />Whatever those words meant, they conveyed to me the idea that when it came to the "higher" stages of consciousness, there was a continuous spectrum leading from less awareness to more. In other words, despite the simple metaphor of relaxing in the Golden Boat to wake up only upon arrival at the Golden Shore, realization entailed a more organic process of unfolding consciousness.<br /><br />By necessity, it seemed to me as a teenaged disciple, a seeker's growing sense of awareness would alert the seeker as he or she neared his or her goal. And despite the arbitrary labels -- partial realization versus full realization -- consciousness is not a linear function capable of being fixed with these types of rigid, mental signposts.<br /><br />By the time <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-become-new-yorker.html">I moved to New York</a> as a young adult, my take on realization had been further refined by my introduction to Sri Ramakrishna and his small band of disciples.<br /><br />My personal style as a spiritual loner -- the wise, self-confident individual inspired by Sri Yukteswar (the "real" Obi-Wan Kenobi) -- was bolstered by Ramakrishna's fiery exhortations to his disciples and the image of its result in the person of <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SrBfQxMrvsI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/P811fvIMe7Y/s1600-h/swami+glances+at+you.jpg">Swami Vivekananda</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/04/gospel.html">The Gospel</a>, however, conveyed something more subtle to my understanding of realization. If Sri Ramakrishna was not only realized but a full avatar to boot -- as I believed then and believe now -- then it was apparent that realization itself had far less purchase in the real world than I had previously thought.<br /><br />As profound and exalted as Sri Ramakrishna's trance experiences were, they apparently had little positive effect on Thakur's ability to interact with the world outside a religious context. In fact, reading about his life from a distance, it's hard not to conclude that in a very real way he was weak and afraid of the world, just as five year old child might be.<br /><br />Whatever realization gave to Sri Ramakrishna, it did not give him knowledge of the world. It did not give him the ability to read. It did not relieve him of a stutter. It did not give him the ability to earn his keep, look after his young wife, or manage his personal affairs. In short, realization seemingly gave Thakur conscious oneness with the Divine and the uncanny ability to talk and sing about that experience in a singularly unique way, but not much else.<br /><br />As a young 20-something, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/06/limits-of-power.html">my own experiences</a> (humble as they were) seemed to confirm this idea (that an exalted spiritual state didn't necessarily translate into facility in any other fields of life).<br /><br />So, by the time I left the Center, my concept of realization was already nuanced.<br /><br />While I was personally attracted to the idea of the wise, quietly empowered spiritual loner (the Obi-Wan Kenobi model), I knew masters came in all shapes, sizes, and personalities. (Ever hear the apocryphal tales of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailanga_Swami">Trailanga Swami</a>?) And while a free and easy access to trance seemed to be a necessary attribute of realization, that exalted state said little to nothing about the individual master's accomplishments in any other field.<br /><br />After leaving the Center, it would take another seven years before <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/12/re-awakening.html">I experienced a reawakening</a> and further refinement to my concept of realization.<br /><br />Though the further refinements were made over the course of the following couple of years, in essence they came down to two basic ideas. First, that my concept of realization as a singular, static achievement was imprecise. Second, that a lifelong assumption of mine that there was necessarily some connection between my "outer" (objective) behavior or actions and my "inner" (subjective) experience of exaltedness was simply wrong.<br /><br />On the first point, I credit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo">Sri Aurobindo</a>. I'd never read a book by Sri Aurobindo while in the Center, but I ate them up after my reawakening. It was Aurobindo's idea of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo#The_Triple_Transformation_of_the_Individual">triple transformation</a> (as I interpret it) that really affected my old concept of realization as a singular achievement.<br /><br />Aurobindo identified three component parts to the human transformation: psychicazation, or the process by which the psychic being annexes the rest of the human psyche; universalization, or the process by which the individual begins to identify with the cosmic influences on the being; and supramentalization, or the process by which the transcendental consciousness takes root in the individual.<br /><br />Importantly, Sri Aurobindo stresses that these three processes are independent of one another. While these processes may take place sequentially -- one after the other -- there's no hard and fast rule. In fact, they can take place simultaneously or in fits and starts.<br /><br />This seemed important to me because it suggested -- and Aurobindo may have said as much -- that one may have solidified a direct link to the supramental or transcendental consciousness, as Sri Ramakrishna seemed to have done in our example above, but that alone didn't mean that one had complete psychic control of one's human nature. Realization wasn't just a matter of arriving at the Golden Shore.<br /><br />It was more complicated than that.<br /><br />On the second point -- that my actions didn't seem to bear on my subjective spiritual experiences -- I had my own life to show for it. I wasn't a celibate disciple; I drank, swore, got angry, spent my days studying "worldly" subjects, gave up meditating on Guru's picture. And yet, the <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2008/05/at-gates-of-trance.html">psychic flame</a> within continued grow and grow.<br /><br />Again, I took surprising comfort in Sri Aurobindo's writings on this point, in particular his epic poem <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/02/savitri.html">Savitri</a></span>. Writing of Princess Savitri's father -- a king, and unknown to most, a sage -- Sri Aurobindo wrote the following lines, which I think underline this idea that there's no required connection between one's subjective consciousness and one's objective actions.<br /><br /><blockquote>One and harmonious by the Maker's skill,<br />The human in him paced with the Divine.<br />His acts betrayed not the interior flame.<br />This forged the greatness of his front to Earth.<br /><br />Apart he lived in his mind's solitude,<br />A demigod shaping the lives of men.<br />One soul's ambition lifted up the race; <br />A Power worked, but none knew whence it came.<br /><br />He made great dreams a mold for coming things,<br />And cast his deeds like bronze to front the years.<br />His walk through time outstripped the human stride.<br />Lonely his days, and splendid like the Sun's.</blockquote><br />I've grown to love this idea of the "interior flame" hidden from the sight of all others, of no outward appearance of "spirituality," of loneliness and inner splendor coexisting. And, of course, these particular lines appeal to my notion of the wise, self-confident loner.<br /><br />Well, that's about it.<br /><br />With the exception of one last component -- the neurological basis of spiritual experience -- this is where my understanding of realization stands. While conscious oneness with the Divine -- presumably through free and easy access to trance -- is the defining aspect of realization, as a practical matter that says little about the realized individual.<br /><br />To my mind, realization <span style="font-style:italic;">does not</span> mean -- necessarily -- that the realized individual has transformed the rest of his or her human psyche or organism.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">That's the young Cambridge graduate, Indian revolutionary, and burgeoning yogi, Sri Aurobindo above.</span>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179595007554980645.post-38414404721441981472009-10-03T20:54:00.000-07:002009-10-03T22:35:33.569-07:00Circling Back<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Ssgp-x1LD6I/AAAAAAAAA1Y/ckfB5ZVPg_w/s1600-h/Anandamayi+Ma+ecstasy.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 305px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/Ssgp-x1LD6I/AAAAAAAAA1Y/ckfB5ZVPg_w/s400/Anandamayi+Ma+ecstasy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5388603112653787042" /></a>As I worried might happen, over the course of the last few posts I started losing sight of my larger point.<br /><br />If I'm losing sight of it, I worry that you -- my reader -- may also be losing sight of it. So, I think it best to slow down now and review.<br /><br />I think Guru both realized God and engaged in unethical behavior.<br /><br />It is this <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/paradox.html">paradox</a> that I'd like to explain. Actually, to be precise, I'm not trying to explain the paradox itself. Rather, I'm attempting to explain the reasons why I think such a paradox is possible. I'm suggesting an alternative view of Guru -- one that rejects each extreme end of the extant opinion spectrum.<br /><br />Unlike his most ardent supporters, I don't believe Guru was born into this world free from all human foibles. Unlike his most strident detractors, I don't believe Guru was a fraud.<br /><br />I'm suggesting a third way to think about Guru.<br /><br />The emphasis here should be on the word <span style="font-style:italic;">suggesting</span>. I'm doing my best to articulate how <span style="font-style:italic;">I</span> think about Guru. I do so in the hopes that it will spur you, too, to think about these issues in a nuanced way and, hopefully, to share your own views either as comments to these posts or, better yet, in your own future writings.<br /><br />So far, I've stated the <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/ethical-case.html">ethical case</a>. What Guru did to <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o-6IcSM0oJY/SpX3VGOEUxI/AAAAAAAAAzg/C6CTzVKtWWM/s1600-h/June+1993">Suchatula</a> and the others was unequivocally wrong.<br /><br />I've <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/metaphysical-assumptions.html">suggested</a> that ethical standards alone may not be sufficient to judge a person's spiritual development (a topic I'll try to expand upon shortly).<br /><br />I've stated <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/sanyassa-tyaga.html">my view</a> that rejection of the world isn't the goal of yoga, rather a state of non-attachment is the goal.<br /><br />And finally, <a href="http://abodeofyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/tantra.html">we've discussed</a> the principle of gaining control of one's nature through acceptance rather than through rejection and repression.<br /><br />In essence, I suppose, I'm arguing in a long-winded way that that there is no necessary or fundamental connection between one's actions and one's subjective consciousness. To be perfectly frank, I'm arguing that there is no connection -- per se -- between your spiritual development and whether or not you engage in sex.<br /><br />Think of Arjuna. He found enlightenment by killing hundreds (if not thousands) of his relatives over a real estate dispute. Certainly, we can have sex.<br /><br />To explain the paradox, however, two questions remain to be addressed.<br /><br />First, what do we mean by God realization? In my next post, I'll explain how I think of the concept.<br /><br />Second, how can a state of high occult development like God realization coexist with a state of emotional and sexual dysfunction? Doesn't God realization mean, by definition, perfection? I'm not so sure and I'll share my thoughts in a following post.<br /><br />At the very least, I hope you'll find some of these ideas thought provoking. And if you think I'm wrong, tell me why. It is only through the clash of ideas -- a civil clash, please! -- that together we can move closer to a more synthetic and complete truth.<br /><br /><i>Above is another of my favorite photos of </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandamayi_ma"><i>Anandamayi Ma</i></a><i>. When you get the chance, check out </i><a href="http://www.anandamayi.org/photos/framesetnew.html"><i>this library of photos</i></a><i> of the beloved Mother.</i>Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06691766827578927691noreply@blogger.com12